Two Middle School teams earned Super Winner status at the most recent English Festival!

Team 1:

Congratulations to the Middle School team of Molly Albert, Emily Brockway, Mary Cacurak, Emma Gabarro and Samantha Steele who earned Super Winner status at the most recent English Festival!

Each team was prompted to read six books for a series of competitions against teams from other schools. Teams competed in the following categories: Trivia, Talk Show, Insights and Super Trivia.

"The normal trivia wasn't too hard, because they would ask a question and go around the table for answers," Emma said. "Super Trivia was more challenging. We would get three words that could be associated with a book. It got more difficult with each question. For insights, we had to come up with a two- to five-minute speech in five minutes, and for the talk show we were assigned one character to be a host from the book. Everyone else had to then choose a character from the book to perform as on an imagery talk show."

The team has been competing together for years.

"This competition is really fun, but it's also really great to do with my friends," Emma said. "We're comfortable together and share our ideas really well whether we're together or talking in our group chat. It's been fun to win prizes and books, and now we're going to an award ceremony. It's been a great experience."

Team 2:

Congratulations to the Middle School team of Charlie Benedetti, Ariana Didomenico, Abbey Evans, Ryan Irvin and Taylor Strishock who earned Super Winner status at the most recent English Festival!

Each team was prompted to read six books for a series of competitions against teams from other schools. Teams competed in the following categories: Trivia, Talk Show, Insights and Super Trivia.

Abbey, Ariana and Taylor are now in ninth grade, though the competition took place while they were still in Middle School.

"I thought we worked really well together even though we weren't all in the same grade," Ariana said.

"We knew (Ryan and Charlie) from years past, so we were already comfortable talking to each other and working together," Abbey added.

Ariana and Abbey credited Gate teacher Mrs. Juran and Mrs. McQueen, who was previously the Gate teacher, with instilling confidence in them to compete in the English Festival competition.

"It makes you feel good when you know a teacher believes in you," Abbey said. "That made me want to represent Deer Lakes and show that we can be successful."

"We want to do it again in High School," Ariana added. "We know it's going to be more difficult, but it's something we'll enjoy again."