Wisconsin Forensics Daily

Monday Meditation: The Power of the Judge

It’s not until one becomes a coach that we realize the power the judge can possess. My first 5 years of involvement in debate included four years as a debater and one year as the exclusive coach of a varsity team. Now, as I’ve taken on the responsibilities and joys linked to teaching younger debaters, I’ve simultaneously come to realize the importance that many debaters place on a judge’s decision and opinion.

What does it mean to be a judge? Is there a “correct” or “incorrect” way to adjudicate? What can be done to address flaws in the current system? WFD would love to hear your answers to these essential questions. Sheboygan North coach Jon Voss begins the discussion in today’s Monday Meditation.

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Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | 7 Comments »

Monday Meditation: More Extemp Questions

Below the break are the extemp questions used at last weekend’s Sandy Theobald Memorial Forensics Invitational at James Madison Memorial High School. During preliminary rounds extempers were given the choice to chose from a Domestic or Foreign envelope from which to draw their questions. During the final round, this was not the case. Enjoy.

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Monday Meditation: Congress “Urban Legends”

The following article appeared in the January 2007 issue of the NFL Rostrum magazine, submitted by Rufus King coach Adam Jacobi. With the “forensics” season underway, it is appropriate to share this retrospective on an event that bridges the art and techniques of debate and public speaking. While the approach to Congress in Wisconsin has often been less than formal, this column attempts to advocate for a cleaner style on the part of students to maximize their purpose for participating: to speak.

Student Congress “Urban Legends”
Let’s Strive for Ethical and Meaningful Debate

Forensics celebrates our democratic society by encouraging dissent, which can often persuade people’s views enough to sway their position on an issue. What distinguishes Student Congress among other debate events is that it uses a practicable framework for discourse through parliamentary procedure. “Parli Pro,” as it’s abbreviated, is a useful tool for allowing for fair discussion of issues, and most importantly, protecting the free speech rights of the minority before a “majority rules” vote is taken. The key word in the previous sentence is “tool,” which is what gives procedure the potential to help build effective debate in a chamber, or be the proverbial wrench that slows debate to a halt.
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Monday Meditation: Practice Extemp Questions

Today’s Monday Meditation comes to us from Appleton East coach Mike Traas. Many people often wonder how extemporaneous speakers do their job - that is - come up with a response to a sometimes difficult question and practice it, in thirty minutes. The answer that a lot of coaches give is simple: practice.

To facilitate that practice, Wisconsin Forensic Daily loves to post practice extemp questions. In what has developed as a tradition, Mr. Traas has made his extemp question from the Appleton East tournament from two Saturday’s ago available for consumption here on WFD (and prior to WFD’s existence, on cross-x.com). However, according to Mr. Traas, “Please temper these with the fact that they are not necessarily up to my standard that I like to make for them.”

Questions are below the break. Read the rest of this entry »

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Monday Meditation: Debate Humor

A web-comic that Tim Scheffler - coach at James Madison Memorial - regularly visits is Bigger Than Cheese. Tim sent WFD a recently posted Bigger Than Cheese comic relating to debate.

You can find it by clicking on this permalink or by looking at it below.

Posted in Monday Meditation | 5 Comments »

Monday Meditation: WSDT

As you may have heard during the award cermonies of several tournaments, coaches are no longer announcing qualifiers to the State Tournament of Champions. Instead, coaches are announcing qualifiers to the Wisconsin State Debate Tournament. For many coaches this may seem odd. The Tournament of Champions has been the name of the Debate Coaches tournament for years. This year presents a new development in Wisconsin debate history - a single state tournament.

In the Spring 2006 meeting of the WDCA, the member coaches voted overwhelmingly to accept the proposed changes of the State Tournament of Champions to hold a combined WHSFA and WDCA state tournament. Since 2004 there have been discussions on how to eliminate the redudancy of holding two competitive state tournaments. Some compromises have even made it to the general business meetings of the WDCA (WHSFA runs V4, WDCA runs Switch) - but only to have been defeated by the general membership. The new compromise was just for a single tournament, with WHSFA support and some additional awards in the V4 division.

This compromise is beneficial for several reasons. First, there is one single state debate tournament to decide who is the best in the state. There will no longer be two, or in some cases three, debate champions in any event. This increases the prestige of those awards. Second, there will be additional funding for the tournament. This is a key advantage. Additional funding allows the state to hire accomplished tournament directors and to use more coaches as judges during the state tournament. Two individuals that have already been hired are Bill McBride and Roland Faas. Third, a single tournament with increased prestige leads to increased media coverage. Nick Bubb (me) will lead the WDCA’s Media and Communication Committee (there isn’t one yet) to create full press package. Fourth, a single tournament with increased prestige will attract more and better qualified judges.

Additionally, most snag issues have been avoided. No school needs to join the WHSFA in order to compete in the combined state tournament. The WHSFA district procedure has been dropped in favor of using the tournament qualification that the WDCA had used. To accomidate for WHSFA exception rule, and in the interest of clarity, the WDCA modified its “back-door” qualifying procedure using. Instead of the 10/15 rule that no one agreed on how to interpret, we now use a .500 rule. Teams (four person or two person) must have a .500 record at two tournaments. This rule only works to qualify individuals in a division where you do not have debaters qualified and only extends to one four person team, two switch side or pf pairs, or two LD debaters. The rule is also extended to PF and LD where it previously did not exist.

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Monday Meditation: WDCA Tournament Calendar Idea

Neenah Coach, Cory Puuri writes today’s Monday Meditation a bit early. He writes:

I’m looking for feedback on an idea I had for laying out the tournament calendar for next year. Some people seem to want to eliminate 4-person Policy debate so we are like most other states around the country. I wonder if a good alternative would be to offer two tournament formats. One format would be all 2-person Policy with 3 levels. The other would be all 4-person with 3 levels. We could set up the WDCA calendar so that the formats would alternate between the North and the South so that there would always be a 4-person tournament option opposite a 2-person tournament option.

Benefits would include: divisions are more likely to make it, more 2-person teams will qualify (instead of 2 small tournaments, there would be one large with more break rounds), there may be enough N2 and JV2 tournaments to add those divisions at state, and we may be able to get the 4-person only and 2-person only crowds to stop trying to get rid of each other.

The only real downside would be that it may force people to split their teams up. I did that this weekend (V2 to Brookfield Central, 4-person and LD to Sheboygan North) and it worked very well. I had to do more planning, but I didn’t really see a problem with it. It is more expensive with 2 vehicles involved and if you do not have an assistant, splitting is probably out of the question.

Posted in Monday Meditation | 12 Comments »

Monday Meditation: WI Debate Alumni involved in UWM Scandal

While most of us spent our Saturday debating, a story involving two former Wisconsin debaters and the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee’s student government broke into the Milwaukee Media. Former Appleton West Debater, Marquette LD Coach, and the first WDCA Champion in LD, Russ Rueden (HS Class of 2002), was implicated in a missing $10,000 from the UWM. UWM, unsatisfied with internal student measures to resolve the problem, has shut down the Student Government (Student Association) and even went so far as to lock the Student Association’s building. The allegations were first brought to the University’s attention by another Wisconsin debater, Jesse Dercks. Dercks competed in debate and forensics for Waukesha South.

You can read the full story over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel(Link).

Whether these allegations are true or not, remains to be seen. Perhaps someone at the UWM could give the debate community a better perspective.

As Russ’ former colleague and competitor, I was completely shocked by this story. In fact, I feel a bit dirty reporting it here on WFD. I did not refrain from reporting because the debate community is one that deals both with good news and bad news. It does not hurt to read the story, get the facts, and pursue truth. One of the long tauted goals of debate is making friends you otherwise would not have made. That purpose would not ring true without a little salt every now and then.

Posted in Monday Meditation, News | 5 Comments »

Monday Meditation: WFD Position Opening

This is not a great Monday Meditation, but Wisconsin Forensics Daily is looking for someone to take over its day to day activities.  I no longer have the time to maintain the site as much as possible, and might soon be leaving debate and forensics, so it would be great if we could find someone to take over WFD while I'm still around.  Inquires regarding details should be sent to Nick Bubb using the forum availible on this site.

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Monday Meditation: Laptop Use

Last Saturday at the WDCA Coaches meeting, there was an extensive discussion of laptop use in debate.  The Judging Standards and Ethics Committee presented an extensive report to the organization.  A copy of that report can be found, right here, on WFD.   That report encompassed many issues including competitive equity (issues like: How fair are they in rounds?  Do they give another team an advantage, if the opposing side does not have one?  Can teams read evidence from electronic copies), economic equity, and percieved misuse (abuse of wifi networks, regardless of whether they exist, can be set up by just setting up a wireless modem). 

Ultimately, the JSE Committee recommended that no action be taken, but that this year be used to study how laptops are used and come to an official policy next year.  The member coaches narrowly agreed.  On this (late) Monday Meditation, we want to know what you think about laptop use in debate!  

Should laptops be used?  If so, should there be any limits set on how they are used?  What might those limits be? 

Discuss.

Posted in Columns, Monday Meditation | 21 Comments »