A Reflection on English Festival 2022 by Benoni Outerbridge

 A Reflection on English Festival 2022 by Benoni Outerbridge

When Falk School first started participating in the WPCTE English Festival six years ago, we had only fifteen 4th, 5th, and 6th graders attend and compete.  This year, due to our school’s pandemic restrictions, we were unable to include the 6th graders, yet we still had fifty-two 4th and 5th graders attend and compete!  For us, it is a club.  We spent the year reading four books and had lots of fun lunch meetings where we discussed the books, tested our knowledge of book trivia with Kahoot!, hunted for matching pairs of cards, and practiced oral responses to insight questions.  On Friday, April 29, the day of the English Festival finally arrived.  The atmosphere in the Falk lobby was electric with excitement.  One group misunderstood their teacher, and in their eagerness boarded the bus immediately.  

Upon arrival at Seton LaSalle Catholic High School in Mount Lebanon, we heard from Ms. Elisa Carbone, this year’s featured author.  She talked about her life, her writing process, and in particular, how she went about researching and writing Poison in the Colony: James Town 1622.  Throughout the day, students had opportunities to meet Ms. Carbone, get their book signed, or have a picture taken with her.  Students were thrilled to meet a “real” author, and the experience gave them a way to see themselves as becoming authors someday.  After her presentation, we dispersed to fifteen different classrooms and got down to the business of competition.  There were a total of thirteen schools represented,  with about 250 students, and the way the Festival is organized, there is a winner from each of the fifteen rooms.  In the end, four of the twelve Falk teams won, but by all accounts, we all had fun.  Students enjoyed different aspects.  In addition to meeting Ms. Carbone and hearing her speak, some enjoyed the fact that the selected books were different from each other.  Others enjoyed the competitions.  Still others liked thinking about the insight questions that were posed for each book.  All around, it was a grand success, and next year, we plan to include interested middle schoolers. Participating in the WPCTE English Festival is a great activity for our students. 

Benoni Outerbridge has been teaching for many, many years, both in public and independent schools.  In 2008, he returned to school to get a Masters in Library and Information Science, and for the last ten years, he has been working as a librarian at Falk Laboratory School.