AWARDS SLIDESHOW

Congratulations to all competitors. We appreciate your dedication to speech and debate this season. We look forward to seeing you at future events this season. 

Grafton High School is pleased to host its second annual tournament on Wednesday, 14 October 2020, through Saturday, 17 October 2020. The tournament will have two components:

*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 Wednesday, 14 October 2020, at 12:00 PM, and those videos will be judged preliminarily on Wednesday (beginning @ 3:00 PM), Thursday, and Friday (ending at 11:59 PM), 14-16 October 2020, as judges have time. Final rounds of those events will be judged on Saturday, 17 October 2020.

*A synchronous speech and debate tournament on Saturday, 17 October 2020, that includes the following events: Broadcasting, Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, and SPAR Debate. Students may enter up to two (2) synchronous events subject to the restrictions that appear below.

Event Rules. We will follow WVSDA rules, which are virtually identical to NSDA/NCFL rules, for most events. The exceptions: Broadcasting and SPAR Debate. The rules for those events appear under Event Descriptions.

Novice. A novice is someone in their first year of high school competition or a middle school student.

Rounds. We will have three preliminary and up to two elimination rounds in all asynchronous speech events. We will have three preliminary and one elimination round of all synchronous speech events. WV tournaments run debate a bit differently than most other states. We allow students to compete in both Public Forum Debate and Lincoln Douglas Debate (or other events). So we will have time for only four preliminary rounds of debate events. (We start power-matching after Round 1 and provide awards to the top six (6).)

Synchronous platform. NSDA Campus.

Asynchronous videos. To submit an asynchronous video for judging, the following needs to be done: (1) make the video of the speech or performance; (2) store the video in a storage location that allows you to create an electronic link to the video (and provide those with the link access to the video); we recommend YouTube; (3) copy and paste the link into the Piece/Quals video link box associated with the entry.

Maximum Entries per Event. We are capping all asynchronous speech events at 48 entries. We are capping all synchronous events (broken down into novice and varsity divisions) at 24 entries so we do not need two elimination rounds of those events on Saturday.

Maximum Entries per School. Each school may enter no more than six (6) students/teams in asynchronous events and four (4) students/teams in each division of each synchronous event but may waitlist others, and they will be added if room is available and adding them won't create judging issues.

Maximum Entries per Student. A competitor may enter up to four events subject to the following restrictions: (1) No more than two of those events may be synchronous (Saturday) events. (2) No student may enter more than one of the following four (4) events - Broadcasting, Extemporaneous Speaking, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, and SPAR Debate - but may enter Public Forum Debate or Impromptu Speaking with any of the four (4) events.

Schedule. The tentative schedule has been posted.

Event Rules. Event rules appear in "Event Rules for WVSDA Tournaments," which is available for download and review from this tournament site.

Judging Obligations. The tournament will employ three (3) judging pools:

(1) A pool of judges to judge asynchronous events on 14-16 October 2020 - judges must judge their assigned rounds over those three days but may determine when they judge them. A school must make one (1) judge available for every six (6) entries in asynchronous speech events.

(2) A pool of judges to judge both synchronous and asynchronouse speech events on Saturday, 17 October 2020. A school must make one (1) judge for every six (6) entries in synchronous and asynchronous speech events for 17 October 2020. (Judges will be assigned to judge asynchronous event elimination rounds throughout the day so those events count in fulfilling judge obligations.)

(3) A pool of judges to judge debate events on Saturday, 17 October 2020. A school must make one (1) judge for every two (2) entries in debate events for 14 October 2020.

Judging Qualifications. To be eligible to judge, a judge must be more than one full school year removed from high school.

Entry Fees. $12.00 per entry in speech events and Lincoln-Douglas Debate and $20.00 per team in Duo Interpretation and Public Forum Debate. Checks should be mailed to the address on your printed invoice.

Drop Fees. We charge: (1) $5 per student entry dropped and $20 per judge entry dropped between the entry deadline and the end of the day before the tournament starts; (2) $20 per student entry dropped and $40 per judge entry dropped on the day the tournament starts but before registration starts; (3) $50 per student entry dropped and $100 per judge entry dropped on the day the tournament starts but after registration starts; and (4) $50 per round that a judge does not show up to judge. Drop fees may be waived for good cause shown.

Live Feeds. We hope to run live feeds of some of the finalists asynchronous events, and possibly some synchronous events, on Saturday, 17 October 2020. Before doing so, we will verify with the coach that the competitor's parent (or the competitor if over age 18) have consent the video's use in a live feed.

Awards. Awards will be provided to students who advance to elimination rounds in speech events and to the top six debaters or debate teams in each event division. 

If you have any additional questions, please email wvsdahelp@gmail.com, and we will answer them, possibly on a FAQ Tournament Page, so that others can see the answers too.