St. Rita Celebrates National Foreign Language Week
Since 2016, St. Rita High School has been celebrating National Foreign Language Week with various cultural activities for our students to participate in. Our 2024 National Foreign Language Week continues that tradition with many fun festivities happening around our school community.
To kick things off, our friends at Country House prepared some international themed lunches each day for our Ritamen to enjoy. These lunches included:
Monday, March 4: Ethiopian Chicken over Basmati Rice with Potatoes & Carrot Slaw
Tuesday, March 5: Grilled Bratwurst with Bratkartoffeln (German Fried Potatoes)
Wednesday, March 6: Beef Birria Tacos with Consommé and Cebollitas Asadas and Jalapeños
Thursday, March 7: Keftedes (Greek Meatballs) over Spinach Feta Rice with Greek Pico and Tzatziki Sauce
Friday, March 8: Parmigiana di Melanzane (Eggplant Parmesan) with Garlic Breadsticks
One activity that our Ritamen have been participating in since we first started celebrating National Foreign Language Week is our annual poster contest. Students are tasked with creating a poster that goes along with each year’s theme. This year’s theme that they had to incorporate in their poster design was “Learning Languages Promotes Friendship.” Our school community voted electronically to pick the top three poster designs. Congratulations to the following students who placed in the top three:
1st Place: Jesus Leanos ’26
2nd Place: Miguel Zamora ’27
3rd Place: Travis Gutkowski ’27
Another unique tradition we offer for National Foreign Language Week is the opportunity for our Ritamen to purchase pulseras, which are colorful handwoven bracelets. Pulseras allow our students to bring the beauty of Latin American culture to life in our hallways and classrooms. This year, we sold 135 handmade pulseras by artisans in Central America raising $675 for The Pulsera Project. The Pulsera Project is a nonprofit organization that teaches, empowers, and connects Central American artists with students in U.S. schools through the sale of pulseras.
During our Unitas Periods on Tuesday and Thursday, our Ritamen participated in a trivia competition of “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?” Our Ritamen answered questions related to spelling and grammar in English, and foreign languages. After two rounds of heated competition, Level 1 Spanish and Latin took the championship title.
On Wednesday, March 7, our Admissions Team along with our World Language and Fine Arts teachers welcomed the 7th graders from St. John Fisher to participate in some fun interactive cultural workshops. Activities included:
Art Teacher, Mrs. Sarah Arteaga had students design paper flowers and colorful talavera tiles.
Students learned how to sign different letters and words with sign language courtesy of our Spanish Teacher, Mr. Tom Bogucki.
Latin Teacher, Mr. William Dolan introduced students to Greek and Mayan alphabets and had them create name plates by using the different alphabets to write their first and last names.
Band Director, Mr. John Donovan gave students a background on different instruments from Spanish speaking countries and students created their own instruments including egg-shaped maracas and they got to take home a kit to make a PVC Pipe Peruvian Pan Flute.
Students used the Spanish language to play three games including Lotería, Headbands, and a cognate game with our World Language Department Chair and Spanish Teacher, Mrs. Colleen Earley.
Students flew to Costa Rica using a green screen with our Spanish and Technology Teacher, Mr. Frank Tellez as they learned how to make paper airplanes in Spanish.
Special thank you to our World Language Department and newcomers, the Fine Arts Department for putting together a great week of activities for students to engage in for this year’s National Foreign Language Week.
