All evaluation criteria can be adjusted to accommodate students with disabilities. Additional guidance on implementing Poetry Out Loud for students with disabilities is available.

PHYSICAL PRESENCE
This category is to evaluate the physical nature of the recitation. Consider the contestant's posture, use of eye contact, and body language.
Advice for the student:

• Use good posture and be attentive. Look confident.
• Engage your audience. Look them in the eye. If you have trouble with that, focus past them to the far wall and keep your head up.

Qualities of a strong recitation:
The competitor will appear at ease and comfortable with the audience. He or she will engage the audience through physical presence, including great body language, confidence, and eye contact—without appearing artificial. All qualities of the contestant's physical presence will work together to the benefit of the poem. Nervous gestures, poor posture, and lack of confidence or eye contact with the audience will detract from a competitor's score.

VOICE AND ARTICULATION
This category is to evaluate the the auditory nature of the recitation. Consider the student's volume, speed, use of voice inflection, and proper pronunciation. At the National Finals, contestants will use a microphone; when appropriate, one should be used in school and state competitions as well.
Advice for the student:

• Project to the audience. You want to capture the attention of everyone, including the people in the back row.
• Proceed at an appropriate and natural pace. People may speak or express themselves too quickly when they are nervous, which can make a recitation difficult to understand. Speak slowly, but not so slowly that the language sounds unnatural or awkward.
• With rhymed poems, be careful not to recite in a sing-song manner.
• Make sure you know how to pronounce every word in your poem. Articulate.
• Line breaks are a defining feature of poetry, with each one calling for different treatment. Decide if a break requires a pause and, if so, how long to pause.

Qualities of a strong recitation:
All words will be pronounced correctly, and the volume, speed, pacing, and phrasing will greatly enhance the poem. Pacing will be varied where appropriate. Scores will be lowered as a recitation falls short on one or more of these elements.

APPROPRIATENESS OF DRAMATIZATION
Above all, recitation is about conveying a poem's sense with one's voice. It is not theatrical enactment. The videos of outstanding recitations on the Poetry Out Loud website, as well as the examples of poets reading their own work, will illustrate this point. Theatrical performances distract the audience and the judges from understanding and enjoying the poem. Subtle dramatization must enhance the audience's apprehension of the poem; it should never overshadow the poem's language.
Advice for the student:

• Do not act out the poem. Dramatization can distract your audience from the language of the poem. Your goal should be to help the audience understand the poem more deeply than they had before hearing your recitation. Movement or accents should not detract from the author's voice as represented by the student.
• You are the vessel of your poem. Have confidence that your poem is strong enough to communicate its sounds and messages without a physical illustration. In other words, let the words of the poem do the work.
• Depending on the poem, occasional gestures may be appropriate, but the line between appropriate and overdone is a thin one. When uncertain, leave them out.
• Avoid monotone delivery. If you sound bored, you will project that boredom onto the audience. However, too much enthusiasm can make your performance seem insincere.

Qualities of a strong recitation:
The dramatization subtly highlights the meaning of the poem without becoming the focal point of the recitation. The performance is more about recitation than theatrical interpretation. A low score in this category will result from recitations that have an affected pitch, inappropriate tone, distracting and excessive gestures, or unnecessary emoting.

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY
This category is to evaluate the comparative difficulty of the poem, which is the result of several factors. A poem with difficult content conveys complex, sophisticated ideas, which the student will be challenged to grasp and express. A poem with difficult language will have complexity of diction and syntax, meter and rhyme scheme, and shifts in tone or mood. Poem length is also a factor in difficulty. Every poem is a different combination of content, language, and length, and the judges should score accordingly.
Advice for the student:

• For competitions beyond the classroom level, select poems of various styles, time periods, and tones. This diversity of selection will offer a richer and more complete performance. Note the additional poem-selection requirements for state and national contests, found on page 6.

EVIDENCE OF UNDERSTANDING
This category is to evaluate whether the performer exhibits an understanding of the poem in his or her recitation.
Advice for the student:

• In order for the audience to understand the poem fully, the performer must understand the poem fully. Be attentive to the messages, meanings, allusions, irony, tones of voice, and other nuances in your poem.
• Be sure you know the meaning of every word and line in your poem. If you are unsure about something, it will be apparent to the audience and judges. Don't hesitate to ask your teacher for help.
• Listen to track 4 on the audio CD (or on the Poetry Out Loud website) in which poet David Mason introduces Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." In his comments, he advises you to think about how you should interpret the tone and volume and voice of your poem. Is it a quiet poem? Is it a boisterous poem? Should it be read more quickly or slowly, with a happy or mournful tone? Your interpretation will be different for each poem, and it is a crucial element of your performance.

Qualities of a strong recitation:
The meaning of the poem will be powerfully and clearly conveyed to the audience. The student will display an interpretation that deepens and enlivens the poem. Meaning, messages, allusions, irony, tones of voice, and other nuances will be captured by the performance. A low score will be awarded if the interpretation obscures the meaning of the poem.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE
This category is to evaluate the overall success of the recitation, taking into account the above criteria, the Diversity of poem selection, and any other factors that may impact a judge's perception of the student's performance. Note that points in this category are doubled in weight.


ACCURACY
A separate judge will mark missed or incorrect words during the recitation, with small deductions for each. If the contestant relies on the Prompter, points also will be subtracted from the accuracy score. Eight points will be added to the competitor's score for a perfect recitation.