Scoring

The following explains the evaluation criteria used for judging and scoring recitations. Strong recitations will reflect excellence in each area.

Note: These criteria, and the descriptions below, are being used by permission from the Poetry Out Loud recitation competition, funded by the National Endowment of the Arts.

PHYSICAL PRESENCE

Judges will consider the student’s body language and stage presence. The student should be poised—but not artificially so—projecting ease and confidence by his or her physical presence. This is an important category, but also one of the easiest to rate. A weaker performance may be one in which the student displays nervous gestures or appears stiff and uncomfortable with the audience.

VOICE AND ARTICULATION

Judges will consider the student’s volume, pace, intonation, rhythm, and proper pronunciation. The student should be clear and loud enough to capture the audience’s attention, but watch out for students who mistake projection for yelling or communicate passion by shouting. Any changes in tone should be appropriate to the subject matter. Students should proceed at a fitting and natural pace, not speaking too quickly from nervousness. Students should correctly pronounce every word in the poem. With rhymed poems, or with poems with a regular meter, students should be careful to not fall into a singsong rhythm. Decide whether the pauses come in suitable places for the poem. A recitation that is mumbling, inaudible, or monotone will obscure the passage's meaning for the audience.

DRAMATIC APPROPRIATENESS

Judges will consider whether the student’s interpretative and performance choices enhance the audience’s understanding and enjoyment of the passage without overshadowing the passage's language. This category evaluates the interpretive and performance choices made by the student. A strong recitation will rely on a powerful internalization of the passage rather than distracting gestures or unnecessary emoting. Low scores in this category should result from recitations that have an affected pitch, character voices, singing, inappropriate tone, distracting or excessive gestures, or unnecessary emoting.

EVIDENCE OF UNDERSTANDING

Judges will consider the student’s use of intonation, emphasis, tone, and style of delivery. “Evidence of understanding” measures a student’s comprehension and mastery of a passage. How well does the student interpret the passage for the audience? Does the student make difficult lines clearer? Does the student communicate the correct tone of the passage—angst, dry humor, ambivalence? MLK's words should take precedence, and the student who understands the passage best will be able to voice it in a way that helps the audience to understand the passage better. Students should demonstrate that they know the meaning of every line and every word of the passage through the way these elements are handled.

In a strong recitation, the meaning of the passage will be powerfully and clearly conveyed to the audience. The student will offer an interpretation that deepens and enlivens the passage. Meaning, messages, allusions, irony, shifts of tone, and other nuances will be captured by the performance. A great performer may even make the audience see the passage in a new way. A low score should be awarded if the interpretation obscures the meaning of the passage.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Judges will consider whether the student’s physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, and evidence of understanding all seem on target and unified to breathe life into the passage. “Overall performance” is worth more than other categories, with the value up to nine points. This category evaluates the total success of the performance, the degree to which the recitation has become more than the sum of its parts. Has the student captivated their audience with the language of the passage? Did the student bring the audience to a better understanding of the passage? Use this score to measure how impressed you were by the recitation, and whether the recitation has honored the passage. In addition to range, judges should consider the complexity of the passage, which is a combination of its content, language, and length—bearing in mind that a longer passage is not necessarily a more complex one. A low score should be awarded for recitations that are poorly presented, ineffective in conveying the meaning of the passage, or conveyed in a manner inappropriate to the passage.