Each fall in my Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing class, I split students into teams, each comprising four or five students, and have them compete to prepare citations that are correct according to the Bluebook. They compete in relay races, two teams at a time, weekly during the semester. In the last couple weeks of the semester, we have playoffs and crown each section’s winning team. Well… we do not exactly crown them. Instead, they get their names engraved on the coveted “Citation Cup,” pictured here. They also win the dubious ‘prize’ of coming to happy hour with me.
In each round, teams are scored based on citation accuracy, and the team that finishes first in each round gets a bonus. This fall, I had two sections and so a victorious team in each. Here are the victors.
In section 2, the winning team was the Narwhals, pictured here (L to R): Buck O’Brien, JT Thomas (TA), Olivia Countryman, me, Bailey Read, John Minahan, and Kendall Rymell.
In section 7, the winning team was Citation Machinis, partially pictured here (L to R): me, Sydney Lawson, and Rory Smith. Not pictured are Megan Hensley, J. Cameron Polk, and TA Sally Fritz.
As my students know, I’m no fan of the Bluebook, but the Citation Cup helps make teaching it more enjoyable for me, and I hope it improves the experience of learning it for the students.
-Brian