New Year, New Debates!

Hi everyone, Happy New Years!

I hope everyone had a nice break and is ready to jump right back into things when we get back, cause we sure have a lot going on.

1) Bake Sale Jan 4th!  On the day of our first meeting of the New Year we will be having a bakesale.  If you could bring something in - home made or store bought - on that day it would be groovy.  The money we make will be used to pay our CDA dues for the rest of the year.

2) The Rotary Speech Contest will also be taking place on Jan 4th.  If you signed up to do the contest, it will take place during lunch (period 6) in the library.  You will be excused from your period 6 class.

Remember, the purpose of the speech is to choose a topic or issue that is important to you and analyze whether or not it is ethical by using these four questions:

Is it the truth?

Is it fair to all concerned?

Will it build goodwill and better friendships?

Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

If you'd like, you can take a look at a judge's scoring sheet and some other explanations here.

Here's an example of a speech on youtube. Notice how he uses the questions to guide him through his rhetoric, rather than forcing the questions onto a predestined framework.  Flow with the questions, you don't have to restrict yourself to a cutout of each question one at a time.  If you're still confused, feel free to send me an email or shoot me a facebook message, or explore youtube.  There are a bunch of speeches up there.

3) CDA Jan 7th.  So far I have 3 teams signed up. Same as usual.  This one will be at King or Fairfield Warde, whichever is closer.  The deadline for signing up is Monday Jan 2nd.

4) The Harvard Invitational is happening Feb 18-20.  The website for that is here.  We will be competing in the Public Forum section of the tournament because that is closest to what we are used to.  The registration deadline for that tournament is Jan 28, but it always fills up early.  If you are interested, talk to me or Ryan and we will work out the details.

Thanks for reading all of that!  Lets get ready for a whole new year of debate.

Mark and Ryan