Lindsey Hancock Warden
Speech & Debate Program
As I have mentioned in additional areas of this website, I teach at a very small, private school. The total middle school body is only about fifteen students for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, and the school has maybe seventy students total, with elementary grades making up the largest bulk of the student body. The size of the student body, school building and the availability of resources limits the extracurricular activities that students have the ability to participate in. Our activities vary from year to year because they are so reliant on our size. For example, the first year that I taught at Heritage, girls could participate in volleyball or cheerleading, and boys could participate in basketball after school. There were no other sports, or any club activities whatsoever for students to choose from. I saw at my school an environment where academics are a separate part of students’ lives and fraternity among the students is not encouraged outside of the classroom. Thus, a mental gap between the classroom and the rest of the world was emerging in our school's culture and I thought that needed to be addressed. There was certainly a need for a sponsor of an extracurricular club, and particularly of one that was academically-oriented and appealing to students who are not interested in or able to participate in traditional athletic sports.
​
While I include some additional rationale and research on speech and debate activities in the artifacts below, I settled on this access opportunity for my students because school-sponsored speech and debate changed my life as a student. It allowed me to find my social niche in middle school and high school, develop my academic abilities, and ultimately gain a scholarship to debate at my undergraduate university where I was able to travel nationally to compete, opening a range of doors related to networking and connecting to others with similar passions and interests. I knew that due to my past experience in similar programs, I could effectively coach and mentor my students so that they were not just socializing through an after-school club, but also experiencing competitive success through the activity. Overall, speech and debate is an access opportunity that I was excited to bring to my students at Heritage Baptist Academy. My own experience opened many doors for me, from networking with other future professionals and leaders to gaining a scholarship to debate in college, enabling me to become the first person in my family to get a college degree.
​
But what are the typical benefits related to an opportunity like speech and debate? As I began planning to start a speech and debate program at Heritage, I knew that the research on such programs is clear. Speech and debate supports standards-based academic growth, improves outcomes for gifted and at-risk students, and improves school retention and graduation rates across the board (National Forensic League, n.d.). Furthermore, students learn to think critically, collaborate and create, and prepare for future roles (Stanford National Forensic Institute). With so many benefits in mind, I knew that the opportunity to engage in speech and debate was too great of an opportunity to pass up implementing at Heritage Baptist Academy.
Table of Contents
Researching and Planning
Initial Research and Access Opportunity Plan
The first step in creating a robust speech and debate program at a new school is researching to determine which opportunities are available for learning and competition to my students, to plan an annual budget for submission and approval to our school's board of directors, and to create informational materials for school administrators, students, and families. I actually began this process as part of an assignment for my Teaching for Transformation I class through JHU. The assignment required me to create an action plan to implement an access opportunity at my school. Given that I was already very familiar with how speech and debate works thanks to my own experiences as a younger person, the scope of my research was focused on what organizations and events were available specific to our area. Through my research, I learned that the main organization through which my students would compete is the Tennessee High School Speech and Drama League. Their website, which you may explore by clicking below, offered several resources for starting a new speech and debate program, including membership information and a tournament calendar.
After gaining some basic information over state and national association membership, learning about the tournaments available in our area, and finding out which topics my students could debate, I created the Access Action Plan attached below for submission to Teaching for Transformation I, but also as my own practical guide to actually following through with implementation at Heritage. I thoughtfully designed this action plan in order to maximize access to the benefits of speech and debate for students.
​
Even from the very first practice outlined in this plan on October 19, you can see that my students dove into practice with academic skills and communication through playing a speaking game and engaging in research over the debate topic. Practicing these skills outside of the classroom is an important access opportunity for families who would otherwise not have the ability to pay for a normal academic tutor, as students are using speech and debate activities to organically practice and reinforce academic skills that they use in traditional school settings daily.
​
Less than a month after beginning the implementation of this plan, I planned for us to attend our first tournament by fielding a travel squad, as you can see next to the November 3 date. Travel competition is a unique opportunity for students to represent their school, experience other school communities and towns across our region, and build friendships with students from other schools. It allows student to gain feedback over their work and performances from a diverse range of coaches and community judges, teaching valuable skills in the domains of personal growth and the ability to accept and apply criticisms.
​
Once I completed an access action plan for my reference, I felt like it was time to begin preparing for a formal meeting with my principal. Our school is quite traditional, and sometimes new ideas can be met with a lot of scrutiny. I felt a great deal of urgency in getting my plan implemented in time to compete in the first tournament of the semester, so I decided to prepare a range of documents to present to my principal and the school board.
Supporting Documents and Administrative Meeting
In order to prepare for an administrative meeting with my principal to request permission to implement the speech and debate program, I created a series of documents designed to answer any of his questions about the opportunities speech and debate presents to students, as well as associated costs and time commitments for being out of school. The purpose of this additional layer of preparation for implementation was to essentially ensure I could get the program started expediently and without getting bogged down in the logistics and bureaucratic-type questions that I was anticipating.
​
The set of bylaws below outline some of the opportunities that students would access through my speech and debate program. The objectives support the development of communication, and the focus on interschool competition. These objectives also highlight a secondary opportunity that speech and debate allows my students to access: the opportunity to have a safe space to explore diverse opinions and ideas, including ideas about current events. This open expression of opinions is definitely not something my school's environment would ever encourage in students using its traditional approach, so I felt this was important to include because part of good communication, academic research, and even college readiness is the ability to explore new ideas and opposite opinions before forming a stance on any subject. This program gives my students the space and the encouragement to do that.
​
The roles and responsibilities section of this document highlight the opportunities for peer fellowship through the different roles that students have the opportunity to take on during the course of their participation in the program. Peer leadership is an important academic and personal skill that will prepare students for future opportunities in high school, in college, and in their communities. I saw few leadership opportunities available for students at our school, which is why I decided to build these opportunities into our speech and debate program.
​
Finally, on page 3, notice sections discussing honor cords and diploma seals. These are items that participating students have access to when they graduate because the National Speech & Debate Association is considered an honor society through which students earn points every time they speak or perform. These academic honors serve as important symbols of the academic skills students have gained through the program, and may also be listed in college application essays and employment resumes as evidence of the various academic and personal skills students who participate in this program can be expected to possess: critical thinking, critical reading, effective expression, confident questioning, peer leadership, collaborative learning, resilience, and invested citizenship. This honor society component can expand students' access from benefits like academic practice and competition travel to actual college offers and scholarships.
An additional supporting document that I knew would be critical for my administrator's approval was a tentative travel schedule. An example of our season's travel schedule is attached below. This travel schedule evidences the benefits students gain from traveling to, competing against, and forming friendships in a set of diverse schools and communities that my students would otherwise not engage with. This list proposes travel to thirteen schools, ranging from middle schools to high schools to college campuses. It includes well over 500 miles of travel by car, exposing students to parts of our state and region that they may never otherwise have seen. Access to students from other schools and communities is crucial for my students, as our own school is quite insulated due to its rural-suburban location, small size, and sometimes rigid social circles and systems of belief. By providing my students with multiple opportunities to interact with others from very different backgrounds, I not only encourage lifelong friendships to form and blossom, but also assist my students in growing their abilities to respect diversity and building their cultural competence. While I would never overstep my professional boundaries as an educator to tell my students what to believe, I think it is very important that the have opportunities and encounters that challenge any preconceived notions about others based on their religion, LGBTQ+ status, spoken language, or school environment. In that sense, the range of schools and communities represented by this travel schedule is very intentional on my part as I hope it will foster some bridge-building between my students and people they might have previously considered "other."
The final supporting document (below) that I prepared for my administrator was a team budget. I created this budget based on my research, and on my own prior experience in speech and debate. The purpose of a team budget, as well as the purpose of including it for evidence here, is that it enables all students to participate regardless of family finances because the bulk of expenses are subsidized by the school. While families might have to cover some incidentals and some travel expenses, the majority of expenses are covered by the school. This is an important plank of access, as it demonstrates that access for this program is available to everyone despite its relatively costly expense.
After examining the THSSDL resources and creating a proposed travel calendar, budget, and set of organization bylaws, I scheduled meetings with my principal and interested students, highlighted in the e-mail messages and attachments below. You may click on the images to magnify them.
After planning my action steps through the access action plan, and preparing some supporting documents that would provide logistical information and highlight access opportunities, I decided to reach out to my principal. Our initial e-mail conversation is attached below. I correctly anticipated some of his concerns in my supporting documents, which we were able to address in a follow-up meeting. Ultimately, I did get administrative permission to start the program and decided to move forward with student and parent informational meetings.
Student & Family Engagement
Meeting Planning
The screenshot below demonstrates evidence of planning an informational meeting for students and parents. This e-mail contains a series of announcements, including the announcement for our first speech and debate student and parent meetings. In the announcement, I state clearly that I will seek to accommodate all interested students, even those who have after-school conflicts. Once the program began in full, we did successfully do this by arranging practice times in the mornings and during study halls so that all students who wanted to participate could do so.
In addition to publicizing our first meeting via e-mail, I posted copies of the flier below around the school in order to generate interest. This flier highlights some key opportunities that I hoped my students would access through the program: building relationships, traveling to new places, winning in competition, and learning to become powerful communicators.
.jpg)
*These photos do not depict my students. They were available in the public domain when I created the flier.
First Meeting Activities
​
In my first student meeting, I introduced them to speech and debate through some informal activities, going over the list of proposed tournaments, and sharing some video clips designed to get students hyped up to participate in this type of program. Two of those video clips are available and interpreted below.
There are multiple benefits in an opportunity like speech and debate, as highlighted by this video. Students list benefits like improved confidence, broader knowledge, friendships, competition, travelling, and feeling like a part of a supportive community. These are benefits that students can access through a program like speech and debate that are unique and not previously accessible to all students at Heritage. The competition, travelling, and diverse friendships in a large community are all benefits that I did not see my students readily able to engage in. Seeing and hearing from other students who have participated in speech and debate definitely got my students interested in this opportunity. I feel that from the very beginning, they realized the doors that could open for them due to their participation.
The second video similarly highlights opportunities for students, such as the ability to have a voice, to influence change, and to have fun and make memories in addition to some of the same benefits mentioned in the first video. This video also depicts a student earning a large scholarship for speech and debate activities, which my students were very excited about. I really love how this video depicts student competitors in action, showing clips of passionate, powerful speakers, which was my goal for my students as well. The list of famous people at the end who have previously participated in speech and debate was a useful way for me to drive home the message to my students that speech and debate can change your life.
The parent meeting, which followed the student meeting, was more focused on logistics and a q&a session. I used the Powerpoint below to provide an overview of the activity, and to highlight the benefits on slide 5. In addition to the academic skills, practices, and social benefits listed therein, this presentation implies other benefits as well, such as developing a growth mindset where I discuss overcoming a fear of public speaking on slide 11. Disseminating information about the benefits of an opportunity like speech and debate was essential to getting a large, interested group of students on board with the program. Following the parent and student meetings, I had about ten interested middle and high school students.
*These photos do not depict my students. I retrieved them from the National Speech & Debate Association website and from public domain resources when I first built the Powerpoint.
Extracurricular Club
The first of two ways through which my students can take advantage of the opportunities provided through speech and debate is by participating in our after-school club. This club is open to any students who are interested in speech and debate, and provides access to multiple opportunities and benefits, including:
​
-
friendship and fellowship with classmates and a sense of belonging to a special group
-
research, discussion, and debate of contemporary issues and political topics that we are unable to address in the regular classroom
-
practice with academic skills in research, writing, and query
-
a unique opportunity to learn about communication and public speaking in a school that does not offer a related elective or activity
​
​
Visual & Audio Evidence
​
The photos below show a typical club practice session. Students are divided into teams, and while they are covering academic material and serious topics, the camaraderie and fun are visible. Club practices are often lighthearted, giving students a critical opportunity to socialize with their peers and build friendships outside of a very stoic and traditional classroom setting like those that are encouraged at our school. Furthermore, they receive critical training in using their powers of verbal and written communication to effectively express their opinions. This is excellent practice for college, the workforce, and ultimately, roles as community leaders and activists. As you can see, students are able to interact as friends working towards a polemical, academically enriching goal. Click on the images below to read a detailed explanation of each.
​
Debate is a fundamentally collaborative sport. Students have the opportunity in practice to learn to function as a team and work with others to design the best cases, speeches, and questions for crossfire. While this allows ample opportunity to work on the academic skills, it also helps students form friendships and relationships with classmates from other grade levels and ages that they might not otherwise get to know.
Two students prepare for a practice crossfire, in which they will rapidly fire questions and answers to each other regarding the content of their team cases. While this is a serious moment meant to test the knowledge of both debaters, crossfire is highly anticipated and typically the students' favorite part of debate practice. As they grow comfortable speaking in front of an audience, their confidence soars and they gain valuable practice in exercising their voices as rising community leaders.
Students frequently shift positions in the team huddle, allowing others to take on leadership and facilitator roles depending on which section of the debate round they are preparing for. Students by now have learned which speeches, crossfires, and subjects they are best suited for and can truly work as a team to ensure the best outcome - a valuable practice opportunity for future experiences on the job and in the community. This kind of flexibility is good training for future pursuits.
Debate is a fundamentally collaborative sport. Students have the opportunity in practice to learn to function as a team and work with others to design the best cases, speeches, and questions for crossfire. While this allows ample opportunity to work on the academic skills, it also helps students form friendships and relationships with classmates from other grade levels and ages that they might not otherwise get to know.
The two videos below are clips from a typical debate club practice round. These clips demonstrate a group of middle school students debating a serious topic quite expertly after spending just forty-five minutes researching the topic and writing practice cases. Though these same students may not enjoy research or writing in the regular classroom, speech and debate provides them with the opportunity to learn and practice these same academic skills in an environment that is less threatening. Students in these clips are also having a lot of fun with their peers as they see how far they can push a strand of argumentation!
Here we see an impassioned speech by a student about diamond mining. This is a great example of a student extracting impartial contentions about a controversial topic. The student personally does not agree diamond mining is beneficial; however, they have developed salient points about how diamond mining might be an necessary economic evil in those countries.This allows students to think with a worldly mindset in a compassionate manner while also applying critical rhetorical techniques to their arguments.
Here a student is showing the use of research in debate. She has clearly found several sources to back up her claims and approaches the argument with statements of fact, not just warrants. More impressively, this is an ad hoc rebuttal. The sheet of paper is at best, some hastily written facts and talking points. This demonstrates that debate provides students not only with the skills to formulate formal arguments, but also hones active listening and speaking skills.
Debate Reference Book and Student Work Samples
​
A major deficit that I noticed as I was conducting my speech and debate club, not just in our school, but in the broader debating community, was a short, concise, explanatory reference book about the style of debate we compete in. My students needed a reference resource that they could use to quickly remember the time limit on a speech, or check before their first tournament to find out what business professional clothing actually is. They needed a resource that explained flowing, the specialized way of taking notes that debaters utilize as they are debating a round against opponents, and templates for writing cases and flowing debate rounds. Since I could not find any resources that precisely matched what my novice debaters needed, I decided to write my own.
​
The attached document below is a debate reference book that I wrote especially for my students and distributed to my debaters. It covers important skills, and thereby improves my students' access to the benefits they can reap from debate by providing them with a tool they can use before and during practice rounds and tournaments to help them as they are learning. I tried to fill the book with the questions I remembered having as a young debater. My students did find this tool helpful, and when other teams and programs in our local area saw them using the book in debate rounds, several requested digital copies for themselves. That means that access to this resource was not beneficial just to my own students, but to other students beyond our own school community as well. ​
​
The student work samples that are attached below demonstrate a range of activities that students might engage in during a standard speech and debate practice. While I have included more specific interpretations in the PDF document viewer itself, these samples include a Pro/Con list on the benefits and deficits of diamond mining that a student created in our Seesaw app using brief research from online articles; a full practice case that a student would write in the same app based on their research; and a sample of four note-taking sheets that students would use to begin practicing flowing that practice case as it was read aloud. This standard practice agenda means that students get to explore a new topic or issue every week, improving their access to information and their ability to form educated opinions over the information they are exposed to, as well as allowing them to practice academic skills like critical reading and critical thinking while they actually engage the research and the informal writing portions of practice. Practice is fun, too! Students work in pairs of two or teams of three to research and write, and they present their written cases to each other to identify weaknesses and positives. These activities let friendships blossom, and really satisfy the gap I saw at the beginning of the school year in extracurricular opportunities that could serve all students.
​
Competition Travel Team
An opportunity that I initiated and sponsor for students who enjoy club practice is a competition travel team. Through competition travel, my students go to other schools around our region to compete with many other students in speech and debate. Adult volunteers and coaches judge rounds of speech and debate, and provide feedback for improvement to students through the use of ballots. The benefits of speech and debate travel expand access opportunities to allow students to:
​
-
travel to new towns and states and experience new communities
-
meet and make friends from other schools
-
be exposed to new ideas, religious and cultural practices, and backgrounds that they would not normally encounter at our insulated school
-
receive feedback from coaches and other professionals to improve their performances
-
perform in front of college recruiters who can offer auditions and scholarships in their college speech and debate programs
​
I allow all students who have done the appropriate preparation for tournaments to travel. This preparation is more involved than in practice. Students spend weeks researching for and writing their debate cases or preparing their speeches as opposed to just a few minutes. They read hundreds of pages of research, and collect this research for use in their performance rounds. These actions provide an additional layer of learning opportunity for students, who must approach many topics with not only breadth, but also depth. My students receive a new topic to research and debate every one or two months, meaning that a student who participates in the program for a full year are rigorously studying about eight topics. Students edit and re-edit cases multiple times until they feel that they have a winning strategy. Experience in tournaments teaches them which strategies are winning ones. Overall, speech and debate travel adds a unique level of competition to students' learning opportunities and encourages them to push themselves to their very best work in a way that the traditional classroom often does not.
Tournament Preparation Work Samples
​
Since adequate preparation is a requirement for students to travel to tournaments, my students grew quite invested in research and writing cases each month so that they would be allowed to experience amazing opportunities to travel. The first work sample, which is attached below, is an example of a pair of debaters' efforts to research a topic bu engaging in "cutting cards." The term cutting cards comes from very early interschool debate competition where students literally had to cut information from newspapers and journals, and paste it to index cards for use in debate rounds. Today, we do all of this using our technology. As you can see in my students' sample, students have researched articles and created "cards," or brief, descriptive pieces of evidence that can be pulled out during a debate round, over the topic "Resolved: On balance, police are more responsible than protesters for recent civil unrest in the United States." This practice of cutting cards requires the student to research, find an article, and then condense it into a soundbite that can be easily integrated into their argument. Ultimately, the sample serves as evidence of students practicing the academic research skills that are such a critical and beneficial aspect of debate, but also supports some of the more abstract benefits I have discussed, such as researching for themselves contemporary issues that they may otherwise get very one-sided opinions about, and having the opportunity to really find their voices as they learn to speak to some of the most important issues of our time.
​
Another important opportunity for reinforcing critical academic skills through speech and debate is via case-writing. After conducting their research and cutting their cards, the next step for student teams is to write a polished debate case that will serve as their actual speech when they go into a debate round for competition. The case attached below is an example of a seventh grade student team's debate cases for a topic on gun control. This impressive level of writing and research is typical of a middle school team that has been travelling and competing with me for several months.
​
These cases demonstrate several important benefits that speech and debate encompasses. First, it reinforces that students are engaging in a wonderful opportunity to flex their research and writing skills. Second, since students must work together to write these debate cases, it demonstrates the culture of camaraderie and teamwork we have built up, and enjoy together. Finally, it presents yet another example of a major debate happening on our national stage in politics and the news media right now that my students are feeling empowered to voice their opinions over. All of these are important skills for them to keep in their metaphorical toolboxes as they use speech and debate as a catalyst to practice for college and their adult lives, and most importantly, to become good global citizens and change-makers.
Visual & Audio Evidence
​
Competition and travel are very important benefits of this access opportunity that allow students to experience a host of secondary benefits, like exploring new places, gaining exposure to diverse groups of people and ideas, and experiencing competitive success. Please click on the slideshow below to see how my students have used competition debate as an unparalleled opportunity to meet others and explore new places.
​
This image depicts a student who has won her first speaker award in public forum debate. I wish you could see her big smile in this photo! The competition itself is a wonderful benefit of speech and debate, as it gives students who are not necessarily involved in sports a competitive outlet and a way to represent and win for their school. Winning awards is a huge motivator, and can keep students invested in speech and debate for many years to come.
This student has won his first medal in a speech event, television broadcasting. The event required him to use a packet of news articles to create his own newsreel, which he then read off and improvised in front of a panel of judges. I love that speech gives students an opportunity to tap their special talents in a competitive way. This student is hilarious and engaging on a regular day, so it was fun to see him wield that towards a competitive purpose. Speech and debate is a lot of fun!
Periodically, my speech and debate students have the opportunity to participate in student congresses where they write and debate state- or national-level legislation. While there are many academic and career-preparedness skills involved with this, I think this photo, taken in February, really demonstrates the close bonds my students have formed with others from all different schools and communities. Shy kids from a tiny school no longer, my students now interact with others with levity and ease
This image depicts a student who has won her first speaker award in public forum debate. I wish you could see her big smile in this photo! The competition itself is a wonderful benefit of speech and debate, as it gives students who are not necessarily involved in sports a competitive outlet and a way to represent and win for their school. Winning awards is a huge motivator, and can keep students invested in speech and debate for many years to come.
Of course, an important opportunity within competition travel is the ability to experience a heightened level of competition by competing against students from other schools all across the region. Rather than hearing the same arguments and debating styles that are often heard in the HBA practice room, my students experience a more challenging atmosphere through competition with other schools. In the competition round highlight reel below, notice my students' more serious and professional demeanor as they speak and ask questions of their opponents than in the practice round videos sample above. This professionalism and confidence is only possible after many rounds of practice and hours of research, and it is a great example of how speech and debate opportunities serve as important training grounds for students to practice skills they will need in their careers and in their community leadership roles in the future.
In this highlight reel, specific access areas are shown. Research is crucial to debate. These clips show both a deep and broad understanding of the topic. Argumentation is made through sources, but it also comes from a thorough knowledge of the topic. Debate allows a unique access to this skill in an academic setting. The ability to deliver that argument is also import. Rhetoric is the art of speaking in a persuasive and informed manner. A feature of this format is a cross-examination period. In these clips, we see spontaneous arguments hurled from both sides. This ability to argue from a place of expertise and poise is crucial. Students access this ability through debate that will be helpful in job interviews, college applications, and work presentations. Finally, we see friendship. Although this debate was contentious, they are still friendly. This teaches students that they can value and respect their work and that of their peers while still being critical of it. Moreover, they learn that while a debate round is 45 minutes, some relationships developed between debate friends last decades.
Ballot Feedback
​
A final opportunity within competition travel that I want to highlight is the invaluable feedback given by adult coaches and judges from the speech and debate community to the student competitors. While I am very devoted to helping my students grow in the practice classroom, it is the feedback of other experts in the community that push my students to be reflective, to identify areas of growth, and to correct misconceptions before the next tournament is scheduled. The documents below reflect some of the feedback, both positive and negative, that my students have received at competition tournaments.
​
Future Opportunities & Reflection
College Debate
​
In my classroom, I am constantly looking towards the goal of preparing my students to go on to college if that is what they choose to do. Speech and debate presents a unique opportunity that students can participate in during middle and high school, but I like to dedicate at least one meeting a year to invite the parents and talk through some of the opportunities for continuing with debate in college, and seeking scholarships for speech and debate. Giving my families access to this information is very important, because for families like mine, speech and debate could be the difference in a student being able to attend college.
​
The Powerpoint below is one that I developed for just such a parent and student meeting. It outlines the types of debate students can go on to compete in once they leave Heritage, walks them through a procedure for inquiring about speech and debate scholarships, and highlights some continued benefits of speech and debate that students can gain in college.
*These photos do not depict my students. I retrieved them from the National Speech & Debate Association website and from public domain resources when I first built the Powerpoint.
Student Reflection​
​
The document below is one that my debate captain's writing professor from her dual enrollment class sent me at the end of last year. It is a narrative piece that she wrote about some of her experiences on our speech and debate team. This is a personal piece and discusses a serious struggle that this student went through last year. Due to the nature of the piece, I did obtain the student's permission to include it in this portfolio.
This piece highlights some of the benefits the student was able to gain through her participation and leadership role in speech and debate. She writes about the many different topics, from opinion polls to terrorism, that she gained knowledge about. She mentions that she used this knowledge in a practical way (to pass her government class exam). She discusses overcoming her shyness and persevering through many losses and discouraging debate tournaments, developing good skills, habits, and lessons that she can apply to challenges in the future. She discusses winning trophies, and beating some rivals. However, my favorite benefit that the student writes about is the strong friendships she was able to form. She describes the friendships as "unbreakable," and believes that they got her through difficult challenges in her life. I am very proud to have been a part of fostering those friendships by creating a program that my students enjoy, and enjoy working together in.
Conclusion
In conclusion, providing access to a speech and debate program has allowed my students to reap countless benefits. By carefully researching, planning, and recruiting, I built an amazing team of students who worked hard to practice academic skills like critical thinking, critical reading, researching, and writing. My students gained access to a dedicated safe space to research controversial topics and ideas, and explore and form their own opinions. My students gained an accessible extracurricular that was open to everyone, regardless of gender or athletic ability, and what's more, they found this extracurricular to be extremely fun. Through commanding the attention of the room with the power of their voices to just goofing around while traveling together, many of my students were able to find an activity in speech and debate that the truly enjoyed and thrived in. Traveling and competing with other schools gave my students the opportunity to meet kids from different backgrounds, and build friendships, sometimes literally, across bridges. My students were able to experience the thrill of competition, and of winning in competition. My students came to rely on one another as the worked, talked, and played together, forming strong friendships and circles of support among themselves. I taught my students and their families how to access speech and debate on the college level, and how to pursue scholarships for doing so. By wielding my own expertise in speech and debate, I helped my students access a program with multiple benefits and opportunities that I believe has had lasting, positive impact on them and on their future trajectories.
​
References:
National Forensics League. N.d. Scholastic Benefits of Speech and Debate Activities. Retrieved from http://egdcfoundation.org/work/assets/Scholastic-Benefits-of-Speech-and-Debate-Activities.pdf
​
National Speech & Debate Association. (2017, Jan 12). Spark Leaders – What’s Your Favorite Part of Speech and Debate? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0AXGlxQIZw
​
National Speech & Debate Association. (2015, Sep 17). Will It Be You? [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_wTco3ICfQ
​
Stanford National Forensic Institute. 2019. The Power of Debate. Retrieved from https://snfi.stanford.edu/skills