LIVE SCHEDULE

Appalachian Speech and Debate Championship

Presented by the National Speech & Debate Association and The Julia Burke Foundation

January 20-23, 2020

Dear Coaches, Parents, and Students,

You are cordially invited to attend the inaugural Appalachian Speech and Debate Championship hosted by Elkins High School on NSDA Campus. This tournament is designed to celebrate and recognize excellence in speech and debate in Appalachia with a special focus on celebrating novice debaters and emerging debate programs from across the region.

Debate Details

We will offer novice and open divisions in Lincoln Douglas Debate and Public Forum Debate as well as a single division of Congressional Debate. 

Novice debaters will have four guaranteed preliminary rounds and three elimination rounds all taking place on Saturday. 

Awards will be given to all students advancing into elimination rounds, to the top speakers in each event, and to the top three schools in team sweepstakes. We want to take every opportunity to celebrate emerging debaters and debate programs from across the region. 

Open division debaters will compete in a round robin format tournament beginning on Friday afternoon. Students will have two rounds on Friday evening and six rounds on Saturday. We want to use this opportunity for the best students in the region to have eight guaranteed rounds of high quality debate in preparation for state and district tournaments. Awards will be given to the top six LD debaters and PF teams as well as the top speaker in each event. 

There will be two sessions of Congressional Debate on Saturday. Awards will be given to the top six debaters and best presiding officer. Legislation is due Friday, January 15th, 2020. 

Speech Details

We will offer an asynchronous speech tournament for the following prepared speech events: Declamation, Dramatic Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Informative Speaking, Original Oratory, Poetry Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, and Prose Interpretation. Competitors must make links to videos available by Tuesday, 19 January, at 12:00 PM, and those videos will be judged preliminarily on Wednesday (beginning @ 12:00 PM), Thursday, and Friday (ending at 11:55 PM), 20-22 January 2021, as judges have time. 

We will offer a synchronous speech tournament on Saturday, 23 January 2021, that includes the following events: Broadcasting, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Impromptu Speaking. 

All speech events will have four rounds of competition. 

Students may enter up to four events provided that they do not (a) double enter in debate events, (b) enter a debate event and a synchronous speech event, or (c) enter in Broadcasting and Extemporaneous Speaking.

Fees

There will be no entry fee for Novice Public Forum Debate, Novice Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and Congressional Debate. There will be a $10 entry fee per event per student for speech events and open debate events. 

We look forward to you joining us online and helping us celebrate and grow speech and debate in the region. 

Best,

Andrew Carroll

Chair, Department of English || Speech & Debate Program Coordinator || Vice President, WVSDA

Elkins High School || andrew.carroll@k12.wv.us