Fear of public speaking may be prevalent, but not among a group of Blessed Trinity Academy students.
The Indiana Township school’s forensics team impressed judges with their oratorical skills, racking up numerous awards during its post-pandemic return to competition for 2022-23.
As part of a forensics league for Diocese of Pittsburgh students in fifth through eighth grades, Blessed Trinity compiled the most points among 16 teams in the regular season’s three meets, with the honor of showing the most improvement between the second and third meets.
The season wrapped up March 11 with a pair of competitions at Butler Catholic School: the team finals — with Blessed Trinity finishing in second place, only two points out of first — and All-Stars, an event primarily for individuals.
For the latter, Blessed Trinity’s Erika Mitchell took first place in the poetry category, and garnering top honors for their group read were classmates Claire Bandurski, Ella Shapiro, Sara Pomietto and Savannah Vogel. In drama, Jules Georgescu advanced to the second and final round.
Some of today’s team members were on board as fifth-graders for the season that ended abruptly in March 2020, and the hiatus continued into 2021.
“Even though we didn’t have a league that year,” coach John Hess said, “I had a number of parents come up to me and say, ‘We really want to be able to keep this going. Can we do something just in our school?’
“We came up with the idea of calling it ‘training camp.’ For five weeks, we just had practice. That’s all we did,” the Shaler resident explained. “So the next year, when the league started up again, we had a pretty good core.”
Joining him in leading the team are Amy Clontz, teacher Patricia Cross and team alumnus Xander Hill, now a senior at Central Catholic High School. The involvement of Hess and Clontz dates back to 2012, when they had children attending Shaler’s St. Bonaventure School, which six years later merged with St. Ursula School in Hampton and St. Mary in Indiana to form Blessed Trinity Academy.
“She and I happened to go into the office at about the same time on the same day to say, ‘Hey, I’ll help with doing the forensics thing.’ We both looked at each other, like, you will? OK!” Hess recalled. “And we’ve been at it ever since.”
They emphasize aspects of effective speaking such as enunciation, projection, pacing and pausing.
“You’re telling a story. You’re not just reading the words. Anybody can read the words,” Hess said. “Most of the kids will latch onto that, and they’ll make it work. And they do a very good job.”
Along with poetry, drama and group reading, other forensics categories tackled by his students include prose and declamation, which generally entails putting their own stamp on a famous speech.
Then there’s the impromptu category: Students have 15 minutes to come up with a speech based on a topic they’ve just learned, and then two to five minutes to deliver it.
“Impromptu is one of those categories that just about everybody shies away from,” Hess said, although some students thrive given a forum for quick thinking. “We had one girl who made up a whole story about being told by her mom, ‘We’ve got to go to your brother’s basketball game.’ ‘Mom, I don’t want to go.’
“But her mom basically teased her and actually took her to her friend’s house. It was a surprise birthday party.”
Improvisation also can work for other categories, as Hess strives to impress on team members.
“Let’s not make it so that you’re reading it exactly same way all the time, because you’ll be bored to tears and that will convey. It will show up,” he said. “So vary it in little places.”
Prior to Erika Mitchell’s All-Star poetry reading, he asked how she went about preparing for meets. Her answer: “I just make it up when I get there.”
“I gave her two thumbs up,” Hess said. “It was very satisfying to hear that.”
