VALENCIA — Abbie Minard is a busy person, but this weekend the high school senior at Shady Side Academy has added another item to her resume.

She is a writer, director and actor in her school’s theater program. She’s spent the past two years as editor of the school newspaper, and she’s a member of the speech and debate team. As of Friday, she officially earned a gold medal from the National Scholastic Writing Awards. That award is her second one in a row.

But this week Minard isn’t just a high-achieving student with dreams of writing poetry and short stories — she’s part of an international collective of student performers competing in speech and debate events at her high school.

Minard, 17, of Valencia is one of two Shadyside students participating in the 28th annual World Invitational Debating and Public Speaking Championship, which the school is hosting over five days. It started Thursday.

The tournament, which is done entirely in English, brings together more than 100 students from 11 countries. It’s only the third time the tournament has been in the United States.

Minard and another Shadyside student, Antoni Yotov of O’Hara, are the only two Pennsylvania students among 15 American performers.

Each student competes in four events — impromptu speaking; parliamentary debating; interpretive reading; and either after-dinner speaking or persuasive speaking.

The initial competitions took place in two preliminary rounds Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The finals and grand finals for each event are Monday.

Minard is in the mix of competitors like everyone, but her mother, Diane, who is a volunteer at the event, said he daughter does have one weak spot: She can’t perform in front of her family because she can’t stay in character.

That means that Diane, her husband, Jeff, and Abbie’s younger brother, Max, don’t often get to see her speak.

Minard’s mother sees her daughter as a bundle of energy and joy who revels in exploring things that catch her interest.

“She is so happy and joyful. She works hard but she enjoys the work,” said her mother. “She does things because she loves it, not because she wants to get a list of achievements.”

On Friday morning Minard participated in the second round of the tournament’s interpretive reading event. She performed “How to Become a Writer,” a 1985 essay by Lorrie Moore that grapples with the frustrations, self-doubt and disapproval often felt by writers — things that Minard said made connecting with the piece easy for her.

“It was a piece I could really get into and perform authentically because it was from that (writer’s) perspective,” Minard said of the essay.

Friday afternoon brought Minard’s favorite event of the tournament: after-dinner speaking, in which performers offer up a funny or entertaining take on an important topic. Minard, who is also a writing tutor at Shadyside, did a piece where she pretended to petition a room full of “mostly grammar nerds,” to help her create an “international grammar police force.”

The senior said she was thrilled to be able to indulge her love of puns during the performance.

Minard, who is headed next year to Princeton University to major in history and minor in creative writing, also has taken advantage of the chance to immerse herself in a community of students from other countries and cultures.

This week she had dinner with students from Lithuania and South Korea, and said she was astonished at the common ground the group found among themselves on, of all things, religion.

“All of us at the table felt the same connection, that there would be some higher power,” Minard said. “It was pretty amazing that it was universal. It was a big moment of connection for all of us.”

The tournament’s first two rounds were essentially elimination events for performers, Minard said. Each round eliminates about half of the competitors until only the top two remain for the finals in each category on Monday afternoon.

Minard said she expects to hear the results of the tournament’s first two rounds either Sunday afternoon or early Monday morning, but she’s not stressing over the outcome. She feels she’s already won simply by being asked to participate in the tournament.

“For me this is about putting on performances that I can be proud of, and about meeting all these people from all over the place,” she said.

“That’s why I do it, because it’s fun.”