Wisconsin Forensics Daily

Thursday Thing to Read: Give Youth a Voice

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).

Posted in Columns, Thursday Thing To Read | 1 Comment »

Monday Meditation: Eliminating the December PF Topic

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:

• Resolved: That Wisconsin should increase its investment in high-speed rail.
• Resolved: That the Qualified Economic Offer policy should be discontinued.

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?

Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | 38 Comments »

Thursday Thing to Read: Preserving Debate

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 »

Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | 1 Comment »

Thursday Thing to Read: Double Entry at WFCA State

Having been proposed and discussed at several WFCA meetings, Wisconsin Forensics Daily would like to turn its attention to the Double Entry Proposal for the WFCA State Tournament. The current WFCA State Tournament only allows a student to enter into a single event. Schools are capped with a 25-person team and cannot enter more than four students in a single category. The proposal would keep both the 25-person and 4 entries per category caps, but would allow students to enter into more than one event.

A summary of the current proposal is below the break. Additional proposals are forth coming, and separate posts will be made as soon as they are available. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Columns, Thursday Thing To Read | 13 Comments »

Monday Meditation: Stop Reading Codes at Awards

A Call to Action for Tournament Directors

When I first started coaching  13 years ago, students were never known by more than their codes at forensics tournaments.  The awards announcer would proclaim, “and in first place, Solo Acting Serious,  from Anyville school, 42R3!”  In the meanwhile, awards ceremonies have become a classier affair, with standing ovations for the first place champion, and standards for tact enumerated in the WFCA Code of Conduct.

In the early part of the new millennium, I experimented at some tournaments with running PowerPoint presentations during awards, sliding names and schools behind the contestants.  I was actually inspired by the spectacle that is the NFL National Tournament Awards program, and wanted to bring some of that celebration of students to our local competitions.  In order to make this work, we needed to collect students’ names during the finals (power) rounds.  The second set of typing in PowerPoint added a few extra minutes of waiting before awards, and whomever would operate the PowerPoint slides might advance a name a few seconds too early, ruining the suspense of announcement.  So, the practice was dropped in favor of more efficient, shorter awards ceremonies — about the same time the “One-Clap” method of recognizing finalists took wing.

By then, however, the practice of collecting names and announcing them during the awards ceremonies became a norm, and a form was even added to the WFCA Handbook, tournament forms section to facilitate collection of this information.  As Mike Traas began more freely distributing his amazing Microsoft Access file for tabulating tournaments, that feature was built-in to allow reading of names and inclusion of them in the results packets — and subsequent posting online here at Wisconsin Forensics Daily.  When I piloted TabRoom.com at the Alverno tournament this year, I was pleased to see that it preserved ink/toner for the reading script generated, only showing students’ names — with phonetic key based on pronunciation guides coaches typed during online registration — and schools.  The only exception was Group Interp. and Play Acting script pages printed by title (so I’ll have to ask the developer of that software if he can incorporate an option for names instead).

So, with all this technology and desire for fast and efficient awards assemblies, why do we perpetuate the practice of gratuitously reading codes during awards ceremonies?  The tournament is over; let’s celebrate the students and the schools they hail from, not the temporary system used to mask their identities up to that point!

Respectfully,
Adam Jacobi
Former Coach, Rufus King HS & Director, Alverno College Tournament

Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | 4 Comments »

Thursday Thing to Read: Help the NFL Give Away Pepsi’s Money

Yes. It’s back. Sort of.

The National Forensic League has released the following message:

NFL is a finalist for Pepsi’s Refresh Everything grant, which helps groups from across the country improve their local communities. NFL’s proposal will create weekend-long communication leadership summits in six major cities for students and teachers in Title I schools. Most of the grant money will be given directly to students, teachers, and coaches in the six major cities we serve. That’s over $210,000 directly into the hands of deserving students and educators.

We need your help to reach our goal! Grant recipients will be decided by community votes. Voting is open now! You may vote every day from today through the end of February. Visit NFL Online to read our entire proposal and vote to make speech and debate education available to new populations.

Also, here’s my random plug for Pepsi: Mountain Dew Throwback has been re-released. You’ve been notified.

Posted in Columns, Thursday Thing To Read | Comments Off

Proposing: Wisconsin Debate Cup

In an effort to increase participation and excitement in local Minnesota debate tournaments, the Minnesota Debate Teachers Association (the functional equivalent of the Wisconsin Debate Coaches Association) has created the MDTA Cup. Similar to the FedEx and Sprint Cups (Golf’s and NASCAR’s season trophy), points are awarded based on how schools/individuals/drivers/golfers fare during the regular season and the school/individual/driver/golfer with the most points wins the cup. A full explanation about what Minnesota is doing can be found on the MDTA website (link).

I propose that Wisconsin implement something similar to the school with the most points at the end of the season. This would provide squads an additional incentive to attend Wisconsin tournaments and would be an interesting alternative to our long-removed sweepstakes and coaches awards. The interesting thing is that this would be a *season long* award, so its some what different than a school’s performance at the state tournament. My personal thought is that Minnesota is a bit over doing it by creating an overall school award, and then separate awards for each kind of debate in Minnesota. To be interesting and prestigious – there should be one Wisconsin Debate Cup (which would need a much cooler name) and it should be accessible to all forms of debate.

The most agreeable point structure for Wisconsin is probably: one point for each entry, one point for each pair/team/student with a winning record at a tournament, one point for being the tournament’s champion/first place team (no elimination rounds used). This way, the maximum number of points you could earn with one pair at a tournament is three. Although a possible revision is: 1pt/entry, 1pt/winning record, 2pts/champion, 1pt/elimination round won – five points maximum at a tournament. The point structure plus the cap would reward switch teams that endure 9 rounds to reach a championship a one point bump over V4 teams. You can drop the championship distinction down to two, and this would create a two point gap between VSS and V4 – but I think it’s probably better to have a one point gap, if any at all.

We could propose more sophisticated point structures, but my guess is that they would be controversial to implement. For example, we could award more points to tournaments with larger competition fields (or create a multiplier for larger competition fields). But I imagine that people who don’t want to attend these tournaments would be annoyed that they were being eliminated from the competition. In some ways, that objection makes little sense – if the point of the award is to increase participation/excitement about local tournaments, then they shouldn’t complain about their choice to avoid tournaments.  Additionally, I think that a need for a multiplier might also be taken care of in the difficulty of the tournament. For example, if a tournament is really hard: the ability for teams to achieve a winning record will be reduced. Meaning the points for the tournament are lower for everyone – so any points that a school is able to earn a difficult tournament would produce more of a separation between them and rest of the field. We could also do something similar to what golf does with the “Tour Championship.” We could have the standings re-set to a particular amount, so that the top seed remains, but school in theory has a chance to win the cup.

What I think I will do is keep statistics based on this year. If it ends up going well, then I think I may recommend a proposal for implementation at the Spring Meeting. Thoughts?

Posted in Columns | 10 Comments »

Thursday Thing to Read: How to be a Good Second Negative

Paul Hager was recently asked how to be a good Second Negative. He started typing and didn’t stop. This is what came out… Read on as Paul tells all secrets about how to win on the negative with a core counterplan or Kritik as your route to victory.

The Duties of  Good Second Negative by Paul Hager.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Columns, Thursday Thing To Read | 1 Comment »

Tuesday Thing to Do: VOTE

Wisconsin Forensics Daily encourages you to vote. There are many issues facing our country and our nation’s leadership needs to respond to those issues. In order to make our leaders listen, you need to vote.

Voting is very easy in Wisconsin. All you need is a photo ID and a proof of address (and to be over 18). You can register to vote at the polls, so you don’t need to be registered already. Even if you don’t have a proof of address, you can still vote if you have a registered voter in your district vouch for you. So there are many issues at stake and voting is really easy. Our question to you is: why are you NOT voting?

Folks also can use this thread to explain who they voted for and why.

Tags: election 2008

Posted in Columns | 3 Comments »

Monday Meditation: WFCA State Thank You

WFCA President Bonni Knight asked Wisconsin Forensics Daily to post this thank you letter:

Dear Fellow Coaches and Friends,

I want to take a moment to thank you all for your hard work throughout the season, and especially last weekend, to help make the 2008 WFCA State Tournament a success. Congratulations to everyone. Whether or not your students came home with trophies cannot be a true measure of what was won that day. Last Saturday was a tribute to hard work and dedication on the part of students and coaches alike. In the end, talent (and a little luck, sometimes) brought the winners to the stage, but every kid who showed up was changed by the performances they saw and the ballots they received.

As I stated in the listening sessions throughout the day, I am inspired by the dedication of the people who make the tournament possible. The list is long, but permit me to mention a few of them:

Chris Zoch – Tournament Director. This man did a superhuman job of organizing and scheduling this event, always displaying gentility and grace, even in the most stressful of moments. Without his attention to detail, the tournament could have been a disaster.

Deano Pape – Site Director. After the tournament was over, and everyone had left, I observed Deano carefully straightening the rows of chairs in the gym for an event the following morning. I cannot imagine how much work this must have been for him, but I do know this… his ability to inspire the team of cheerful college team members to get up and be there at 7 am on a Saturday is truly impressive.

Jodi Becker – Site Coordinator. It was Jodi who arranged all the coordination of details. Throughout the day, I was impressed by her ability to juggle countless details about rooms, concessions, etc, all the while smiling calmly.

Mike Traas – Tab Room Director. Wow. Data flowed through the computers, set up and managed by Mike. His staff performed effectively and cheerfully, and everything went very smoothly. This room was a sight to behold, with teams of focused professionals hunched over their computers muttering numbers to each other, allowing the tournament to conclude almost exactly on schedule.

Paul Seymour – Tournament Assistant. I met Paul at a meeting room at the Country Inn on Friday night, where he was leading a staff of volunteers in stuffing packets and organizing judges. Another detail person, his work really moved the tournament along.

Father Gary Wegner – Tournament Practices and Procedures Chair. The large number of protests and complaints brought to this committee was, I believe, unprecedented. But Gary and his team heard both sides of every story, and always made every effort to give people the opportunity to speak in defense of the protest. I was most impressed with Gary’s common sense approach to things, as well as his gentleness during conflicts. Also, hats off to Joe Meinecke for his quick use of Google to try and help people prove the validity of their cuttings.

Adam Jacobi – Congress Director: Adam’s dedication to the activity of Student Congress is legendary, as is his passion and talent. The day went smoothly, and everything was handled professionally. Adam’s decision to move the congress to earlier in the day has truly improved the event, as it allows kids to “give it their all” and still have something left for the next day.

Steve Sexton – Past President. Steve was responsible for organizing the scholarships and awards. Thanks for providing inspirational insight into all of the great winners.

I mention all of those people and their actions because I think sometimes we take for granted the generous dedication of these volunteers. It is easy to pay your dues and registration fees, and just show up without ever wondering how it all takes place. The fact that an event of this magnitude can be run completely by a group of dedicated volunteers in truly unbelievable. But many of us are nearing retirement age, and it is time for more members to step up and volunteer. Host an invitational tournament. Host a workshop. Volunteer for a committee. Run for office. Have a say in the future of this group. And think about attending the Spring Meeting in Fond du Lac on May 2 – 3. Get to know us. Let us help you. You may contact me with any questions.

Finally, as many of you may already know, my assistant coach, Steve Sparks, passed away in August at the age of 26 from a pulmonary embolism, devastating me and my students. I also lost my brother-in-law, my next-door neighbor, and several friends this year. It ended up being one of the most difficult years of my life. But it also taught me something: You can never count on someone or something to be there tomorrow. You have to live life to its fullest every second. To me that meant many things: coaching my students with every ounce of energy that I possessed, spending precious time with my beloved family traveling to Belize for Christmas, visiting a friend in Vermont, or in the hospital, shopping occasionally (or more than occasionally), and trying to lead a complex organization that, because it is composed of people, can be full of conflict. I urge all of you to move forward and work together for the good of your students, and for all Wisconsin forensicators. Life is too short to hold on to disagreements and conflict. And our students deserve our best work.

It has been a genuine honor to be president of such a dynamic, vital organization.

Sincerely,

Bonni Knight

Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | Comments Off