On Wednesday, January 19, 15 members of the debate team participated in a forum discussion in response to issues of economics, poverty, and national priorities raised in a video documentary recounting the final weeks of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The forum was organized by Mrs. Carmen Clay and the YAC group and also included the Multicultural Club and several teachers, including Mr. Wiley, Mr. and Mrs. Miano and myself. The forum provided on opportunity for us to get outside of the unique and highly specialized world of policy debate and use our skills in a way to promote the sharing of ideas and perspectives in the broader Casady community. I appreciate the efforts of all who took the time to participate and look forward to future opportunities to partner with these other campus groups to discuss ideas that are important to the advancement of our community and society.
An overview and slideshow of the event is available on the YAC blog:
http://casadyyac.blogspot.com/
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Colleyville Heritage Plans Posted
Check the Drop Box for the itinerary for Colleyville Heritage, February 4-5. This may be our toughest tournament yet! We need a parent to drive the second vehicle. Let me know if your parent is interested.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Casady in the Medals at Jenks
Last year at this time, we traveled to Jenks, OK as a club of CX neophytes, and we watched in wide-eyed wonder as the Champs CX teams from Owasso and Charles Page high schools demolished each other, slinging theory, evidence, logic, some (not-so) choice language, and even a pen or two in a battle we thought was fascinating and crazy and, well, we didn't exactly know what to think of the whole thing. Was CX debate something we wanted to be a part of, or was this just some rare instance of debate gone awry? Turns out, it was the latter, and the experience launched us on our journey to where we are today: one year later, we are a squad with four tournaments, 10 medals and a silver plate on our wall, nineteen students with National Forensic League degrees of merit and honor, and a reputation for excellence both in Oklahoma and Texas.
Do I sound proud? Well alright then, I sound proud. I am proud! What an incredible journey this year has been -- and we're nowhere near finished yet! Our somewhat unexpected degree of success in this our first year as a cross-ex debate squad is a testament to the determination, competitive spirit, and, dare I say, swagger, of our students. We contend with multitudinous obstacles day in and day out, including difficult academic classes, often conflicting commitments to our school's competitive sports teams, and perpetual negotiations with that ever-present monster: Time. Through all of this, we have managed to pull together, combine our efforts, various talents, proclivities and personalities, and forge Casady's new debate program with honor and respect, one exhausting tournament at a time.
I would be remiss if I did not extend our heart-felt gratitude to the parents who have given of their time and resources to support us on our journeys. This time, Jerry and Monica Gliva devoted their weekend to accompanying us to Jenks and helping us make it through the tournament as smoothly as possible. They drove, made multiple trips out for food, supplied us with a table replete with healthy snacks and drinks, the sight of which made us the envy of other squads, helped me through the stress and worry I seem to go through every time we compete, and even provided a mobile hot-spot so that we could access the Internet for urgent card-cutting needs in between rounds. We also want to thank Mrs. Altan for providing goodie bags for us to take with us on Friday; the sandwiches, waters, snacks and toys helped us focus and relax.
All in all, we debated 37 rounds, winning 28 rounds and losing only 9. Congratulations!! We had three teams make it to the semifinals: Analla-Khastgir, Shakir-Shakir, and Altan-Hamid. The two girls teams debated each other in one semifinal round, and the boys defeated Kansas City Lincoln College Prep in their semi-final round.The teams of Analla-Khastgir and Altan-Hamid agreed not to debate the final round against each other, since everyone was tired and ready to head home. We will decide the gold and silver honors after we have a chance to evaluate speaker points. Both teams were undefeated.
This was the first tournament in which we entered two teams in the Champs division, in which all teams compete who have already qualified for the OSSAA state competition in previous tournaments this school year. Due to our status as only an associate member school in OSSAA, we are not eligible to compete in the qualifying divisions, so beyond Novice, our only option in Oklahoma debate is Champs. This is a monumental leap in terms of experience and skill level for our students (who have competed in only 2 or 3 tournaments EVER) to face, and it presents me with an insoluble dilemma. Do I continue to place my top teams in Novice, where I know they will win medals but will be under-challenged, or do I move them up into Champs and make them face the top varsity teams in the state? In the interest of education, I chose the latter. With one team member out due to illness, we had to rearrange our partners, with the result that Catherine White and Jake Patton debated together for the first time. (Layne Turci graciously agreed not to debate, but to go along as an assistant coach instead. Thanks, Layne!) Not only was this their first experience against varsity debate teams, but it was also their first experience debating together, and they had to adapt to new speaker positions in order to make it work. They had a mixed experience. After four rounds of intense, fast, theoretically and analytically challenging debate, they lost three rounds and won one. The one round I watched could have gone either way, but the judge appeared to be an LD judge who favored oratory skills over evidence and analytics, so he voted against them on a disad I thought they had clearly defeated. Oh well. The round they won, however, was a phenomenal and messy K versus double K smash-up! The affirmative team from Belton, Missouri ran a critical aff, which is a highly complex affirmative position that chooses to focus the debate on ideology rather than advocating policy. In a bold move, Patton and White made a snap decision to confront the K aff with two, TWO K negative positions. The debate evolved into a rapid-paced, intense interchange of arguments, steeped in theory, evidence and analytics, about which ideological position was more educational in the round. The aff made the egregious mis-step of refusing to discuss the issue of language, and ultimately our neg team won the round by demonstrating that the aff was essentially imperialist in its attitude toward debate. I wish I could have been there! I am exceedingly proud of Jake and Catherine for rising to this challenge and not backing down until they emerged victorious.
The pride I feel in our team today rivals the extent of exhaustion I'm sure we all feel. We have work to do going forward: we need to focus on the intricacies of the counterplan/perm and K debates, practice to improve our extemporaneous speaking skills in the rebuttals, better organize our nearly 2000 files, develop a couple of new aff positions, and continue to research and update cards and blocks on aff and neg, for starters. It looks like we won't be competing at Santa Fe, since we would all have to compete in champs there, and we are not all ready for that step. I am leaning towards taking the top novice teams to the Colleyville-Heritage tournament in Grapevine, TX, since in Texas we can compete in novice/JV all year, and the competition in those divisions will be solid. After that, our top two teams travel to Berkeley, CA to compete in the JV division of the Cal State Invitational. It is an honor for us to be accepted to this tournament in our first year as a squad, and we are all eager to fly out there and face a whole new level of competition at that national level. We hope to make this an annual spring event for the top teams on our squad to attend (until we earn bids to the Tournament of Champions and NFL Nationals, that is!).
Dr. G
Do I sound proud? Well alright then, I sound proud. I am proud! What an incredible journey this year has been -- and we're nowhere near finished yet! Our somewhat unexpected degree of success in this our first year as a cross-ex debate squad is a testament to the determination, competitive spirit, and, dare I say, swagger, of our students. We contend with multitudinous obstacles day in and day out, including difficult academic classes, often conflicting commitments to our school's competitive sports teams, and perpetual negotiations with that ever-present monster: Time. Through all of this, we have managed to pull together, combine our efforts, various talents, proclivities and personalities, and forge Casady's new debate program with honor and respect, one exhausting tournament at a time.
I would be remiss if I did not extend our heart-felt gratitude to the parents who have given of their time and resources to support us on our journeys. This time, Jerry and Monica Gliva devoted their weekend to accompanying us to Jenks and helping us make it through the tournament as smoothly as possible. They drove, made multiple trips out for food, supplied us with a table replete with healthy snacks and drinks, the sight of which made us the envy of other squads, helped me through the stress and worry I seem to go through every time we compete, and even provided a mobile hot-spot so that we could access the Internet for urgent card-cutting needs in between rounds. We also want to thank Mrs. Altan for providing goodie bags for us to take with us on Friday; the sandwiches, waters, snacks and toys helped us focus and relax.
All in all, we debated 37 rounds, winning 28 rounds and losing only 9. Congratulations!! We had three teams make it to the semifinals: Analla-Khastgir, Shakir-Shakir, and Altan-Hamid. The two girls teams debated each other in one semifinal round, and the boys defeated Kansas City Lincoln College Prep in their semi-final round.The teams of Analla-Khastgir and Altan-Hamid agreed not to debate the final round against each other, since everyone was tired and ready to head home. We will decide the gold and silver honors after we have a chance to evaluate speaker points. Both teams were undefeated.
This was the first tournament in which we entered two teams in the Champs division, in which all teams compete who have already qualified for the OSSAA state competition in previous tournaments this school year. Due to our status as only an associate member school in OSSAA, we are not eligible to compete in the qualifying divisions, so beyond Novice, our only option in Oklahoma debate is Champs. This is a monumental leap in terms of experience and skill level for our students (who have competed in only 2 or 3 tournaments EVER) to face, and it presents me with an insoluble dilemma. Do I continue to place my top teams in Novice, where I know they will win medals but will be under-challenged, or do I move them up into Champs and make them face the top varsity teams in the state? In the interest of education, I chose the latter. With one team member out due to illness, we had to rearrange our partners, with the result that Catherine White and Jake Patton debated together for the first time. (Layne Turci graciously agreed not to debate, but to go along as an assistant coach instead. Thanks, Layne!) Not only was this their first experience against varsity debate teams, but it was also their first experience debating together, and they had to adapt to new speaker positions in order to make it work. They had a mixed experience. After four rounds of intense, fast, theoretically and analytically challenging debate, they lost three rounds and won one. The one round I watched could have gone either way, but the judge appeared to be an LD judge who favored oratory skills over evidence and analytics, so he voted against them on a disad I thought they had clearly defeated. Oh well. The round they won, however, was a phenomenal and messy K versus double K smash-up! The affirmative team from Belton, Missouri ran a critical aff, which is a highly complex affirmative position that chooses to focus the debate on ideology rather than advocating policy. In a bold move, Patton and White made a snap decision to confront the K aff with two, TWO K negative positions. The debate evolved into a rapid-paced, intense interchange of arguments, steeped in theory, evidence and analytics, about which ideological position was more educational in the round. The aff made the egregious mis-step of refusing to discuss the issue of language, and ultimately our neg team won the round by demonstrating that the aff was essentially imperialist in its attitude toward debate. I wish I could have been there! I am exceedingly proud of Jake and Catherine for rising to this challenge and not backing down until they emerged victorious.
The pride I feel in our team today rivals the extent of exhaustion I'm sure we all feel. We have work to do going forward: we need to focus on the intricacies of the counterplan/perm and K debates, practice to improve our extemporaneous speaking skills in the rebuttals, better organize our nearly 2000 files, develop a couple of new aff positions, and continue to research and update cards and blocks on aff and neg, for starters. It looks like we won't be competing at Santa Fe, since we would all have to compete in champs there, and we are not all ready for that step. I am leaning towards taking the top novice teams to the Colleyville-Heritage tournament in Grapevine, TX, since in Texas we can compete in novice/JV all year, and the competition in those divisions will be solid. After that, our top two teams travel to Berkeley, CA to compete in the JV division of the Cal State Invitational. It is an honor for us to be accepted to this tournament in our first year as a squad, and we are all eager to fly out there and face a whole new level of competition at that national level. We hope to make this an annual spring event for the top teams on our squad to attend (until we earn bids to the Tournament of Champions and NFL Nationals, that is!).
Dr. G
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)