January, 2019

Dear Forensics Coach:

The Washburn Rural Forensics squad invites you and your students to the annual WRHS Invitational Forensics Tournament to be held on Friday and Saturday, February 8-9, 2019.

On Friday, February 8, we will be offering four rounds of Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum Debate. We will also hold two sessions of Student Congress. We will attempt to generate enough numbers to offer a Senate Chamber; however, if we do not get a minimum of 14 congresspersons entered in the Senate, we will collapse it into the remaining varsity houses. I would like to have at least three house chambers with House C being for your novices. Please keep this in mind when you are registering.

On Saturday, February 9, the tournament will consist of three preliminary rounds of competition followed by a final round to determine placing and State Championship Qualifiers. The events for competition will be: Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, International Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, Informative Speaking (10), Informative (7), Impromptu, Dramatic Interp, Humorous Interp, Duo Interp, Program of Oral Interpretation, Prose and Poetry Interp.

Additionally, we will offer Junior Varsity Domestic Extemp, JV International Extemp, JV Dramatic Interp, and JV Humorous Interp.

Please note that NSDA rules will apply to DX, IX, OO, INFO 10, HI, DI, and Duo. KSHSAA rules will apply to IMP, PRO, and POE interp.

Junior Varsity events are open to 2nd year sophomores, or novices (regardless of year in school). Should entry numbers not warrant separate division in DX and IX, JV Extempers will be merged into one JV Extemp Division. If collapsed into one division, contestants will choose whether they draw from domestic or international topics.

For more information about the tournament, please refer “Stuff You Need to Know” information or contact me via email at ellistim@usd437.net . This is the best option; but, if you need to speak to me in person, you may call me at (785) 840-8393 [cell phone]. The tournament will be scheduled on Thursday, February 7th, so please make your changes before this date. There will be no refunds for entry adjustments after February 6th, 5:00 pm.

REGISTRATION

Step 1: Proceed to Tabroom.com and begin the entry process. Registration will OPEN on Friday, January 18th at 8:00 AM. PLEASE request TBA entries as soon as possible and rank (as requested) your “wait listed” entries.

Step 2: Complete final registration on Tabroom.com. Final Registration will require that you enter names of students in respective events. NOTE: YOUR ENTRIES WILL NOT BE REMOVED FROM “WAIT LISTED” STATUS UNTIL NAMES HAVE BEEN ADDED. This final step must be completed by Tuesday, February 5th at 5:00 PM.

Thank you for your interest in attending this year’s tournament. We look forward to seeing you the second weekend in February.

Sincerely,

Tim Ellis, Director of Forensics

Lauren Smith, NFL President/Tournament Chair

Bradley Mathewson, Co-VP

Emma Schroeder, Co-VP

STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW

STUDENT PARTICIPATION: Students may enter three (3) events, with the following caveat(s): Do NOT enter the same student in the two extemp events. You may enter the same student in one extemp event AND impromptu. Additionally, a student may not enter both Informative events or the same event in both JV and Varsity.

EXTEMP TOPICS: Topics will be written from current magazines and online new sources dated from December 1, 2019 to the present. This may include: Time, Newsweek, The Economist, and The New Republic.

INTERNET USAGE: We will NOT use the KSHSAA rule governing the use of the internet in the debate events or extemporaneous, we will be using the NSDA internet pilot rules.

IMPROMPTU TOPICS: Topics will be drawn from the following categories: Rounds 1-3, will feature “People in the News”, “Pop Culture”, “Political Cartoons”. In the final round, contestants will draw one of three fortune cookies. Choose one, open it, and therein you will find your topic.

TIME LIMITS: Judges will be informed of time limits for individual events as posted below. There may or may not be a timekeeper for all rounds. If there are no timekeepers, judges will be the final arbiters of time infractions. JV Division will follow the same time limits.

AWARDS: Awards will be presented to the top six finalists in each event.

Sweepstakes awards will be presented to the top two schools. In the Varsity Division, sweepstakes points will be awarded to the the Top 20 entries as selected by the school. In the JV Division, sweepstakes points will be awarded to the schools top eight entries.

A single student may ONLY be counted twice towards Sweeps, even if he/she is entered in three events.

JUDGING: There should be plenty of judges and your students need to know that there may be panels in some rounds. However, if something happens and we end up with a judge shortage, you may be called upon to judge a couple of rounds.

FEES: $5.00/person/event. Schools will be required to pay for all entries including “extras” requested after registration is completed. This includes “extras” given on the day of the tournament.

REFUNDS: Refunds will NOT be given for cancellations after 5:00 pm, Wednesday, February 6th.

PERFORMANCE ORDER EXPECTATIONS: Any student who does not perform within the time limits of the round as posted will not be allowed to perform or will receive the last rank in the round. This is as the discretion of the tournament director.

EVENT / MAXIMUM TIME (+ 30 seconds "grace")

Original Oratory (10)

Informative 10 (10). [May use visual aids]

Informative 7 (7)

Extemp (7) [Draw: 30 minute prep]

Impromptu (5) [Draw: 5 minute prep]

Dramatic and Humorous Interp (10)

Duo Interp (10)

Program of Oral Interpretation (10)

Prose and Poetry Interp (7)

IMPORTANT NOTE: 5A - 6A schools will be able to state qualify in Info 10, all other schools will be able to qualify in Info 7. A 5A-6A entry can participate in Info 7, but will NOT be able to State Qualify.

THOSE CONTESTANTS ENTERING EXTEMP: All extempers will be expected to perform in the order as posted. They should then arrange to participate in additional event(s) either before their scheduled “draw” time, or after their scheduled speaking time.

CONFLICTS: The WRHS forensics coaches reserve the right to resolve any problems and/or conflicts by whatever means they deep appropriate.

FINALS: Final results will be CUMULATIVE.

Additionally, there will be a 3-minute rapid-fire cross-examination period during finals of Extemporaneous Speaking. Speaker #6 will cross-examine speaker #1, speaker #1 will cross examination speaker #2, etc.

Contestants will be assigned an order to perform. Be aware it may not be in the order of preliminary round placement. (If required, every effort will be made to avoid a speaker cross-examining another speaker from his/her school.)

TAB IS CLOSED: Ballots will be made available ASAP in a classroom very near TAB.

Coaches will be given results access to their own squad’s results via Tabroom.com

Results will NOT be open to the public until after the Final Results Assembly.

LINCOLN DOULAS AND PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE TOPICS:

The LD Topic that will be debated is the NSDA topic announced for January/February 2019:

Resolved: The United States ought not provide military aid to authoritarian regimes.

The PFD Topic that will be debated is the NSDA topic announced for February 2019:

Resolved: The United States should end its arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

PROJECTED SCHEDULE

The projected schedule for both Friday and Saturday can be found on Tabroom.com.