I've done the "upside down + newspaper" thing in the past and it worked. Make sure you get multiple, overlapping layers of paper and cover it with heavy mulch. You may have to weigh down the edges as well. It's not pretty but effective.

Once the grass is dead, you may have to manually remove what's left by shaking out the soil and trashing the roots. Otherwise they may sprout again, depending on what grass you have.

Yup! Your plan will work quite well (I never bothered with newspaper) since you live up north. It wouldn’t work at all of you lived in the south and had Bermuda grass... because that stuff is the spawn of Satan. I was so happy with the grass in Indiana compared to the grass in Texas. LOL! (I often built up berms in my yard in Indiana this way... cut it super short, slice it up, lay it upside down... sometimes I used roundup to speed up the process and sometimes I didn’t. I’m not particularly averse to using that stuff properly.)

Just be aware that a berm made of cut sod, newspaper and mulch is not going to be a berm for long. All that organic matter will decompose and you will be back to the original soil level in a short time. The best you might could expect is a very low hump.

Also be sure of what kinds of grass or weeds are in the strips ... I've accidentally transplanted my share of quack grass and creeping charlie, before realizing that they spread by runners embedded in the turf.

Thanks for the feedback, all! I won't add in layers of newspaper. And yes, nickel_kg, I hear you on transplanting undesirables! We have a few areas where creeping charlie has established and I will toss those strips to the section of my backyard that I refer to as "yard waste purgatory".

Oh Christopher C Nc, believe me, there is so much sod... this will be a berm :-)

If you want to make your berm last even longer, and have tree scrap available like branch trimmings or logs... you could do a hugelkultur berm. Lay down or even trench down your tree scrap, then berm the sod up over that... then your topping off with other.

And something to consider- a berm of any kind can change the water flow in your yard. Make sure you aren't accidentally creating a damn spot :) This might not be an issue for you if you live high and dry enough.

I’ve no experience with berms or this technique but I agree with Christopher that it won’t stand up for long, based on the fact that stacking turf upside down in layers is a time honoured method for producing lovely crumbly potting soil.

So, how's it looking?