Your Source for news and culture about Wisconsin Debate and Forensics
The September-October 2010 Lincoln Douglas Debate topic is:
Resolved: States ought not possess nuclear weapons.
The September 2010 Public Forum Debate topic is:
Resolved: Allowing deep water offshore oil drilling is in the best interest of the United States.
A great weekend was had for all at the efficiently run National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament over Memorial Day weekend in beautiful Omaha, with several Wisconsin teams returning home with inspirations for next year and much success.
Below is a running list of individual results, gathered together from what I know. Feel free to leave additions or corrections in the comments.
Archdiocese of Milwaukee:
Isaiah Grady, Bradley Tech – Octofinalist in Oral Interpretation of Literature
Alexis Wilkinson, Nicolet – Octofinalist in Original Oratory
Jake Tully, Brookfield East – Semi-finalist in Dramatic Performance
Gabby Termühlen, Brookfield East – Octofinalist in Oratorial Declamation
Jennifer Vosters, Brookfield East – Octofinalist in Dramatic Performance
Aditya Trivedi and Chih-Wei Wu, Brookfield East – Double-octofinalists in Public Forum Debate
Jenna Huebner & David Mullins, Appleton East – Quarterfinalists in Duo Interpretation
Claire Zhuang, Appleton East – Octofinalist in Dramatic Performance
Diocese of Green Bay:
Alice Zhao, Sheboygan North – Quarterfinalist in Original Oratory
Caitlin Holzem and Amen Okundaye, Neenah – Double-Octofinalist Policy Debate
Kris Harmelink, Sheboygan South – Octofinalist in Dramatic Performance
Maria Giannopoulos, Sheboygan South – Semifinalist in Student Congress
Diocese of Eau Claire:
Megan Marquardt, Eau Claire North, Octofinalist in Original Oratory
Special congrats are in order to the kids at Bradley Tech and their coach Ernest Chomicki who saw their first student break to elimination rounds at nationals – an exciting and historic event in the life of a forensic program. Congratulations to Bradley Tech, and to everyone who represented our state with class this weekend!
The National Forensic League has unveiled a new resource for speech and debate teams called Give Youth a Voice. The new website is a free resource to NFL members and is targeted at helping schools raise funds for their program. The site offers teams a way for teams to list their funding needs and to share that information with potential donors. The website also offers donors a way to make a tax-deductible donation to the team.
Give Youth a Voice also offers some simple campaign tools, including the ability to set a goal, display efforts towards that fund raising goal graphically, and the ability to upload specific photos of your team.
This a great resource that helps fill a need that all teams have. If your school is an NFL member, I highly recommend you check this out. (Alternatively, if you’re not an NFL member, your school can join the NFL).
Need to practice for the Extemp TOC/NFL/CFL Nationals? Then we have the solution for you! Here are the questions from the 2010 WFCA State Tournament. Happy practicing!
Tags: extemp questions
Brookfield East is screening the Wisconsin premiere of the documentary Speak Easy. Speak Easy unearths the “little known world of Forensics” (their words, not ours). The film follows four high school (Duo) teams from four different states for one full year, culminating at the National Tournament in Las Vegas (in 2008). (This is not the similarly named documentary about Toastmasters competitions.)
{Slight spoiler, one team is from James Logan. Another is from Eagan. Perennial final round contenders… so you know it’s going to be good.}
The screening is scheduled for this Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 7:oo pm. The show is at Brookfield East high school. Need an address to put in your GPS? Here you go: 3305 Lilly Road. Brookfield, WI 53005.
Tickets are just $5. There will also be snacks. All proceeds go to the Brookfield East Forensics Team.
If you are available and in the area, go out and see the show. It should be good and you end up helping a team out in the process – a win, win for everyone.
At the Spring WDCA Business meeting, there was an interesting discussion that we decided to continue online. The idea centered around the possibility of departing with the NFL’s December topic and substituting our own “Wisconsin” topic. Currently, the December PF topic receives a limited consideration in Wisconsin. Students debate the December topic for only two weekends – the weekend before the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament and the weekend of the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament. In the past there have been less than optimal December topics that seem to undercut the momentum/importance of the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament. The NBA’s dress code topic, for example, was the December 2005 WSDT Topic.
The National Forensic League topic is great for encouraging students to think about issues of national importance, but rarely do students consider public policies that exist on a smaller scale. There are plenty of important and easily researchable public policy topics that are considered in state government. The 2009 James Madison Memorial domestic extemp final round experimented with using state-focused extemp topics, for similar reasons. A state-focus topic would allow students to explore a high profile, important public policy issue that exists “in their own backyard.”
The National Forensic League has been using the PF topic as a vehicle to enhance outside involvement in speech and debate. It was suggested that the WDCA do something similar. For example, we could contact rhetoric and public policy professors around the state to develop a state-focused PF topic. Those academics could then be invited as distinguished guests of the tournament. And those academics could potentially become further involved and more supportive of high school speech and debate.
A couple noteworthy examples were mentioned. They were:
There are a couple of ways that this could be enacted. First, the Wisconsin Topic could be a substitute for the December Topic. Second, the Wisconsin topic could be only for the WSDT. This means that the first weekend in December could still be using the December topic. Alternatively, the first weekend in December could also just be a continuation of November topic. We could also just do away with the December topic in general and extend the November topic two extra weeks.
What are your thoughts? Would this be an enhancement to debate? Would this be a detriment?
Wisconsin has been losing debate programs over the last several years. Many young coaches who were excepted to be the next generation of coaches have since moved on from the activity. Established coaches have also left, leaving many programs without the dedicated and qualified people that they need to ensure their program’s health. Sensing that this problem has become widespread and beyond the help of the governing organizations, I wrote the following letter to Wisconsin’s Governor, Senators, Congressional Representatives, and state Senators and Representatives that serve on education related committees:
Read on below the break. Read the rest of this entry »
A generous soul has sent us the WFCA results. (Seriously, how is it only one WFCA coach is capable of sharing results with WFD? Weren’t there at least 70 other coaches who also received a results packet?)
Anyway, the results are here in PDF form: Full WFCA State Results
Congratulations to the individual category winners. And special congratulations to James Madison Memorial on winning their seventh WFCA championship. They now have tied Appleton East with the most number of state team championships. They have also tied the Chicago Bulls in Repeating the Threepeat (’02, ’03, ’04 and ’08, `09, `10). The Bulls won the Larry O’Brien Trophy in ’91, ’92, ’93 and ’96, ’97, ’98.
Valerie Shen of James Madison Memorial was named one of two Wisconsin Presidential Scholars, an honor extended to 141 students nationwide. She shared her achievement with her debate coach, Tim Scheffler, who will receive a Teacher Recognition award. Valerie was a recipient of both a Wisconsin Debate Coaches Association and Wisconsin Forensic Coaches Association scholarship. She was the WFCA’s 2008-2009 State Champion in Extemp, and with partner Lingran Kong, the WDCA’s 2009-2010 State Champion in Public Forum Debate. She and Lingran advanced to elimination rounds at the NFL national tournament in Public Forum in 2008 and 2009, and are making a third trip there this year. The past weekend she and Lingran achieved a 4-3 record at the University of Kentucky’s Tournament of Champions, placing 26th overall. She is an NFL Academic All-American, holds a Premier Distinction Degree (five ruby), and is currently 23rd on the All-American list.
A review by WFD revealed 22 of the 141 Scholars are NFL members and 7 educators are current or former NFL coaches (Shen and Scheffler included). This recognition shows the value of Debate and Speech in brining out the best in students and the value that debate and speech coaches have on our nations brightest scholars. (Full list after the break).
This post is to discuss various spring meeting proposals and reports. Proposals/Reports will be posted as they are submitted.
Reports
WDCA History Report – Doris Sexton, West Bend
2009 WDCA Season Survey Raw Data – Nick Bubb, Madison Memorial
2009 WDCA Season Survey Comments – Nick Bubb, Madison Memorial
Judge Certification Discussion – Dan Hansen, Mukwonago (document pending)
Ballot Tracking Initiative – Dan Hansen, Mukwonago (document pending)
Proposals
WDCA Paperless Barrier – Bill Batterman, Marquette (document pending)
WSDT Judge Preference Order – Tim Dale, UW-Green Bay (document pending)
Restriction on Maverick Debaters – Dan Hansen, Mukwonago (document pending)