Whether your city is hosting a March Madness game, you have a college with a participating team nearby, or your students just really love basketball, mid-March to early April is an exciting time for college basketball fans. We’ve curated a collection of articles, interactive activities, and lessons to make it easier for you to bring March Madness classroom activities to your students throughout the tournament:

• Start a March Madness reading bracket
• Go beyond the bracket with more March Madness ELA classroom activities
• Discover the science behind jump shots and free throws‍
• Spotlight March Madness history and traditions in your elementary social studies classes

[Start a March Madness reading bracket](id-bracket)

Hit a three-pointer with your students by adding March Madness ELA activities to your lesson plans this month:

Rank poetry and fiction selections and crown a winner

Create your own March Madness-style literary bracket with your students. Over a few class periods, students can read engaging fiction and poetry texts and vote on their favorites. 

For even more participation, have students create personalized brackets on paper or using Formative, and use a classwide bracket to track the majority picks. Some of the options for each grade band include:

Elementary fiction and poetry

• “The Princess and the Pea” by Hans Christian Andersen
• “Paul Bunyan” by W.B. Laughead
• “Somewhere in a Tree” by Beverly McLoughland

Middle school fiction and poetry

• “children do” by Alyssa Gaines
• “A Word is Dead” by Emily Dickinson
• “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

High school fiction and poetry

• “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe
• “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson
• “Putting in the Seed” by Robert Frost

Extend your in-class March Madness bracket with science content

ELA classrooms don’t get to have all the fun! Have students create a March Madness bracket with science content or add nonfiction resources to your ELA bracket to make the voting even more interesting. Students can read about topics like:

• How dogs take on luggage sniffing jobs at airports around the country.
• Ways students are working to adapt toys for children with disabilities.
• Why some animals hibernate during the winter.

[Go beyond the bracket with more March Madness ELA classroom activities](id-ela)

Explore other ways to create March Madness-themed lessons through reading, writing, and debates to keep students engaged:

Debate if college athletes should earn money for playing

Take students’ opinions off the page and encourage healthy debate and discussion in the classroom:

• Have students read articles from different viewpoints about the debate topic: Should college athletes be compensated?
• Use a Debate Text Evidence Organizer to track opinions and evidence for each viewpoint as they read.
• Split the class into groups to debate if college athletes should receive payment for their playing performance and use of their likeness. Use a Debate Rubric to score their participation.

Want to add writing practice to your lesson rather than a debate activity? Use the same topic and similar resources and ask students to write an opinion essay instead. They’ll choose which side of the argument they agree with and use evidence to support their point of view. Assign the opinion essay on Newsela Writing to help students get real-time feedback and guidance as they work!

Decide if athletic competition is inherently good

During March Madness, college basketball players (and their fans) can get extra competitive. But is that devotion to the game and desire for winning the championship good for their mental health? Use this lesson as a debate topic for your students. To help them form their opinions and strengthen their arguments, share articles on topics like:

• How youth basketball is becoming an ultra-competitive sport for some elementary and middle school students thanks to the popularity of travel sports teams.
• An opinion piece on how the pressure to become a winner may lead athletes to engage in unethical behavior, like cheating.
• The reaction to LeBron James breaking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s career scoring record in 2023.

Compare themes with a paired text analysis activity

Teach students how to compare themes across fiction and nonfiction texts while capitalizing on their interest in basketball. Implement a paired text analysis activity by:

• Sharing the fictional story, “Abby Takes Her Shot” by Susan M. Dyckman, about a young basketball player who must wait patiently on the bench for her turn to play.
• Assigning a nonfiction article that details ways we can learn to be patient.
• Asking students to complete a paired text analysis worksheet while reflecting on the question, “How are the ideas from the articles similar or different?”

Introduce students to basketball-themed novels

Add novels to your in-class reading or students’ independent reading lists that tie basketball to literature. Some options include:

• “The Crossover” by Kwame Alexander
• “Taking Sides” by Gary Soto
• “Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie

[Discover the science behind jump shots and free throws](id-sci)

How do March Madness athletes get so good at the game? Science can explain! Show students how science plays a role in the sport on and off the court.

Uncover the science of basketball

How much of basketball is physical, and how much is mental? Do taller athletes have a competitive edge? Do genetics play a role in our athletic abilities? These are just some of the questions students may have about science in basketball. Help them research the answers with articles on topics like:

• How psychological traits like work ethic and competitiveness can help basketball players get better at the game.
• Why the NBA recommends young athletes play multiple sports and take time to rest off the court to improve their performance.
• Comparing the careers of NBA players Michael Jordan and LeBron James to determine who is the greatest basketball player of all time.

Explore and analyze NBA player data

Some college basketball players who reach the March Madness tournament continue their careers in the NBA. Students can explore data about pro basketball players and learn why it’s important to collect these types of stats with resources like:

• A dataset that shows physical attributes, career achievements, and performance metrics of 20 iconic NBA players like Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, and Steph Curry.
• An article about how and why Swarthmore College’s men’s basketball team practices foul shots from 14.5 feet.
• An article about how the SportVU camera systems installed in every NBA arena have revolutionized the sport’s data tracking.

[Spotlight March Madness history and traditions in your elementary social studies classes](id-ss)

Teach your elementary students the history behind March Madness, brackets, and competition in social studies class. To implement the lesson:

• Assign an article that explores how March Madness generates revenue for the NCAA.
• Share an article about the mathematicians and statisticians who use mathematical models to determine the odds of a perfect March Madness tournament bracket.
• Ask students to complete a Write-Pair-Share worksheet with a partner as they work through the article content.

Keep the competition going with the Independent Reading Challenge

Competitive reading fun doesn’t have to stop when March Madness is over. Use the Newsela Independent Reading Challenge each month in your classroom! This gamified event encourages students to practice literacy skills and read about topics that spark their interests. They can earn tokens and badges for completing quizzes and Power Words activities on articles included in the challenge.

Not a Newsela Customer yet? You can access the Independent Reading Challenge and other differentiated content and activities by signing up for Newsela Lite and starting your free 45-day trial of our premium subject products!