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

Debate Results from November 11th

The whole team at New Canaan.

On Saturday November 12th the Staples Debate had another great day at New Canaan High School.  We brought 5 Novice teams to the tournament.  Max Wimer '15 and Will Vester '15 went 3-0 at their very first tournament.  Kelly Chang '13 and Neloise Egipto '13 went 2-1.  The topic was Resolved: That the US pass legislation substantively similar to the DREAM Act.  The DREAM Act is an expedited path to citizenship through the military or college for illegal immigrants who were brought to the US as minors.

3-0 Team Max Wimer and Will Vester qualified
for the Novice Division of the State Championships
In March

Doing Work! Over typical debate fare of
Chips and Soda.

"It was fun!" - Neloise Egipto '13

Getting Ready for Saturday

Hello everyone!

 

I hope everyone is excited for our debate on Saturday! I just got an email from the head of CDA saying that this is going to be one of the largest tournaments yet. All of the other schools are getting into gear and I am very happy with the amount of teams we have signed up from Staples. Just a couple of small housekeeping things to make sure everyone is on the same page.

We will be debating at New Canaan High School at 11 Farm Road in New Canaan. Dress Code is semi formal. For boys that means khaki pants, button down shirt, and optional jacket, no jeans. For girls that means nice pants or a nice skirt. Everyone who is debating, please arrive before 9 oclock. This includes parent judges. While we are researching the topic at the tournament the judges have a seperate judges workshop. If you haven't already, please send the email of your parent judge to Ms Mac (through roundcube) and she would be happy to answer any questions about what it is like to be a judge.

Next, there are a couple things that everyone should bring:

1)Notepaper. I find big old fashioned legal pads work best for flowing, but regular notebooks do the trick too.

2)Pens/Pencils - in the plural!

3) Highlighters - One for Pro and one for Con is pretty common

4) $5 for pizza and a soda or a bagged lunch. You buy food tickets in the morning that you redeem during lunch.

Assuming that everything runs smoothly, the third round of debate ends at 3:30. While the spectator round after that is optional, I do encourage everyone to attend because there is alot to be learned by watching the best of the tournament do their thing. After the varsity debate they hand out awards and distribute the results. That ends at about 5:30.

 

Good luck!

First Practice Debates Tomorrow

Hey guys!  Hope power is back for everyone and you guys are all ready to debate.  For tomorrow's meeting, just a reminder that everyone should read and make contentions for this cda packet - http://ctdebate.com/PDFs/CDAPacketOct10.pdf

Remember, a contention is just a basic argument, like a thesis statement.  It would also be beneficial if you had a supporting detail and maybe a fact or quote from the packet to back up each of your points.

 

Come in tomorrow with a partner and get ready to debate! 

 

Also, our next CDA tournament is approaching!  It is on Saturday, November 12th.  Please think about if you would like to go, who you would like to go with, and if you can bring a parent judge with you!

 

See you there,

Mark

 

PS - for all of you in players, good luck with your show!

For Next Week

Hey guys! Another good meeting today. For those of you that couldn't make it today, next week you get to try everything we've done so far out for yourselves. Please read this packet: http://ctdebate.com/PDFs/CDAPacketOct10.pdf We'd like everyone to prepare contentions for both sides of the packet with a partner before the next meeting. This will let us jump right into the debate. This is a real CDA topic, both serious in nature and with room for fun. Good luck everyone! Also, everyone please let me know if you can go to the debate on November 12th and if so, if you can bring a parent. Thanks!

Facebook Group!

Hey everyone, I'm excited to announce the new Debate Facebook group.  I know some people don't check their email or this website all that often so we have a new facebook group to keep everyone in the loop and give people to chat about debate, if the would like.

Just search "Staples High School Debate Team" and request access to the group.

I'll still rely on emails and this website as the main sources of communication, so keep checking!  Thanks guys.

First Tournament of the Year!

On Saturday the Staples Debate Team kicked off the competitive CDA debate season.  Heres how we did:

Goldschlager/Vouse 3-0
Stein/Gordon 1-2
Massoud/Susnosky 0-3
Nelson/Liberson 0-3


The topic was about the Death Penalty.  A very interesting, if primarily moral debate topic.