TOWAMENCIN- For the sixth year in a row, all North Penn Juniors in 6.0 English classes came together to compete in the annual Literature Festival. Twelve different classes of students joined together in the auditorium during 7th and 8th period on March 1st to test their knowledge. With the students reading the same books throughout the curriculum and learning the same vocabulary, they were all even on the playing field when it came to the Knowledge Bowl and the trivia questions.

To kick off the competition, the teachers of each class picked their favorite passage to read in front of everyone. Following them were 12 students who read dramatic passages as either solos or duos. either The faculty leaned more towards passages relating to transcendentalist ideas and Hemingway’s writing while the students stuck more to the writings of Melville and scenes from The Crucible and Macbeth. Haley Muth and Claudia Thamm came in first place for their dramatic partake with an addition of props to help enhance the reading.

The majority of the event was the Knowledge Bowl where each class continuously sent 2 students to submit an answer to literature based questions for 20 rounds. While the students answering changed each round, the discussion from the classes about the answers and why certain ones were wrong or right, portrayed how hard they have all been working and reading all year. Ms. Schmidt’s second period class took home the trophy, beating all other 11 classes for first place.

While the Knowledge Bowl was stealing eyes from the audience, the other English teachers traded their Moby Dick books for a new perspective of how the students had interpreted the readings into their own works of art. The pieces ranged from the topics of Moby Dick, to The Crucible and the Scarlet Letter. The variety the students provided was remarkable. They ranged from paintings, to photographs, 3D symbols, drawings, and even handmade harpoons!

“I think working together with my English class was really fun and made me enjoy learning more than I usually would in the classroom. Although my class is smart, I was still surprised we won the Knowledge Bowl out of all of the classes there. I worked really hard on my painting, just hoping to get extra credit out of it, but I am very appreciative of the judges choosing my piece. Overall it was just a fun event and it made me realize learning doesn’t always have to be in a classroom,” explained junior Olivia Duessing, winner of the art contest and Knowledge Bowl.

Lit Fest is a great opportunity for students to get up from their desks and use their own creativity to comprehend the material along with teaming up with classmates to work together. A shift in the environment gets them excited to get the right answer whereas in a classroom they may be timid to raise their hand.

“I think just the excitement, it’s a lot of the time we sit in class, and it may be a little boring or they are not connecting to something, but when you bring it into an environment like this it just brings it to life because all the students naturally get excited because they see everyone else is and they think ‘Ok, this has value’,” commented English teacher Mrs. Weizer.