Debate Teams and Competitions

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I'm trying to revamp my school's very tired, terrible debate team, and I'm doing some research on debate. Do the teams at your school compete against other schools, or are they mainly in-house debates between one another? I'd really like to have a team where we practice and compete rather than just have lame old abortion and death penalty debates with one another. Where are your competitions? What are the 'big' ones? How do you improve your debating skills. </p>

<p>Any response would be extremely helpful!</p>

2

<p>my school debated against other schools. look up the National Forensics League for information about debate and speech events.</p>

3

<p>I'm sorry, but the NFL is a joke. Look up the "ToC" if you want some real competition.</p>

4

<p>Our state does NFL tournaments--we debate against each other (schools) on such topics as legalized casino gambling and illegal immigration, as well as the college apps process. It involves intensive research and practice.</p>

5

<p>^^^Could you explain further? Like, what does a typical practice/meeting consist of? Do you travel for finals? How do you fundraise?</p>

6

<p>Well, we usually meet once or twice a week, give out research responsibilities, practice our arguments, talk about upcoming tournaments for a bit...lasts around 60-90 minutes a meeting. We don't really fundraise. Tournaments are in VT and we just travel in a big van. It's fun. If we actually get to nationals, then we'll worry about funds. State finals, though, 40 miles away from school.</p>

7

<p>What exactly does the coach have to do? Do they have to be at every practice and tournament? Is it an active role? I don't think I could find many teachers at my school willing to give up weekends to coach a debate team, especially because we have a Model UN, Model Congress, and Mock Trial already being sponsored by a majority of the social studies department.</p>

8

<p>look at cross-x.com for information on policy debate, one of the most popular (and foolish) forms of debate.</p>

9

<p>IN response to PlanPlusDebater. You are completely incorrect. NFL (National Forensics League) isn't a joke. In order to even make it into ToC (Tournament of Champions) you have to qualify for it through the NFL. ToC is just one turnament, not a league.</p>

10

<p>My school is a part of NFL, but we just started our Speech team. We don't have any debaters since this is our first year but maybe we will some day!</p>

11

<p>Tickytock, I have to stand up for policy debaters everywhere and disagree with that statement. In my experience, policy has been the most fun and rewarding type of debate.</p>

12

<p>All noobs.</p>

<p>You don't have to do NFL to qualify for TOC. In fact, NFL Nationals is just one qualifying tournament for TOC. You get to TOCs by advancing to late elimination rounds of national circuit tournaments (ones with names like Harvard, Glenbrooks, Stanford, Big Bronx, etc).</p>

<p>There are three major forms of debate. From oldest to newest: policy (CX), Lincoln-Douglas (LD), and public forum (PF, pofo). That's also the order of most esoteric to least esoteric, least audience friendly to most, etc.</p>

<p>So there's the NFL (national forensic league), the NCFL (national catholic forensic league), and all the unaffiliated national circuit tournaments that lead to TOC. There are also state forensic leagues, state high school sports leagues, and so forth. NCFL doesn't really have anything to do with Catholicism anymore. NFL and NCFL differ largely on geography. A strong debate team would go to all those things: regional NCFL diocese tournaments, chapter NFL qualifers, district/regional/state high school sports league tournament, and national circuit tournaments like.. whatever. Look up University of Kentucky and J.W. Patterson, and Tournament of Champions for a list of major tournaments.</p>

13

<p>You improve your debate skills by practicing, doing rebuttal redos, working on articulation drills, doing research.</p>

<p>Most schools hire a coach for a couple thousand dollars per school year. My school doesn't because they're cheap or whatever. So we have a teacher that supervises meetings in school and signs stuff. You'll have to ask 1) your school administration and 2) each tournament directors to see if a faculty member must be present at tournaments and stuff. You could potentially just do debate under the radar.</p>

14

<p>Our coach is awesome. He's been a DC lobbyist and coaches another team in Montana. He gets really competitive and makes us work hard, but we win a lot, so it's cool :)</p>

15

<p>Our debate team competes in three leagues - NFL, CFL, and FFL. </p>

<p>NFL is the national league, and we compete in district tournaments to determine qualification for nationals.</p>

<p>CFL is the Catholic Forensic League. Most of our local tournaments are CFL-sponsored.</p>

<p>Finally, FFL is Florida Forensic League, and we participate in the qualifiers for states, as well as the Varsity State / Novice State Championships.</p>

<p>You might want to check out the NFL / NCFL websites for district information. You may already be in a debate district for those two leagues, which would greatly expedite the process. Both websites have lists of districts. It would be helpful to use the general region of your school to figure out what district you'd be in for those leagues. Then, you can figure out if any other high schools in your region have debate teams.</p>

<p>Generally, you compete locally within your district. Our district hosts several local tournaments, as well as qualifiers for the aforementioned national and state tournaments. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that it does cost money to be a member of NCFL or NFL. I believe annual dues may be $75+. </p>

<p>If you lack resources like money, instruction, and coaching, you can always just have a debate club, where you simply discuss issues, etc. To get material and topics for your club, you can check NFL's topics monthly. There are monthly topics for each of the debate events, and there are lists of archived/past topics for you to use. </p>

<p>You'll be surprised by the depth and variety of topics available, and you'll find that it's not just "abortion/death penalty", as popular media would lead you to believe.</p>

<p>Do not pay attention to PlanPlusDebater, who is obviously an extremely experienced debater. When you simply getting a debate team started at your school, the last thing you need to worry about is the large, national circuit tournaments. They really have no place in a new team's agenda. </p>

<p>I wish you the best of luck, and hope that all of your questions have been answered!</p>