October 6, 2021

Dear High School Speech and Debate Coach,

We’re pleased to invite you to the inaugural Edmonds-Woodway High School Speech and Debate Tournament!  The dates for this year’s tournament are November 12^th-13^th. Due to our District requirements and the state of the world right now, we will be hosting this tournament online

This year the tournament will be held on Cascade Commons, a tournament room-hosting service that has served us well over the last year of competition. This platform provides an advantage over competing services in that it allows observers in rounds, and permits increased flexibility for all events in room assignments. This does require some advanced set-up on your end to ensure the security of our participants, but it will be worth it!

We currently plan on running all speech events live, with the option for an asynchronous backup in the event of connection issues at the time of the round. Please see event descriptions for specific rules, but we are asking that each competitor in prepared speech events submit a backup video. More info about this process will be found here soon. 

We offer the following events:

Congressional Debate

2 sessions on Friday evening and a super session on Saturday divided into open and novice as entries permit. We will keep house sizes small in order to facilitate online competition. More info soon.

DEBATE

Policy Debate: Open and Novice

Lincoln Douglas Debate: Open and Novice

Public Forum Debate: Open and Novice        

Novice CX will use the limited case areas adopted by the WSFA, which can be found here.  Lincoln/Douglas competitors will use the Nov/December LD Topic as announced on www.speechandebate.org on October 1st. Public Forum debate will use the November topic as announced by the NSDA on October 1st. You can obtain the Public Forum topic and guidelines for that debate at www.speechanddebate.org.  You may want to verify the topic with us.

Individual Events                                  

Inform  (Novice-Open)               Oratory  (Nov-Open)

Extemp  (Nov-Open)                  Programmed oral interp (Nov-Open)

Duo Interp  (Nov-Open)             Impromptu  (Nov-Open)

Dramatic Interp  (Nov-Open)     Humorous Interp (Nov-Open)

Ed Com (Open Division only)       

If a division has fewer than 10 contestants the event will be collapsed into one division.

PLEASE READ THE EVENT RULES CAREFULLY

If you are coming from out of state, you may want to consult the Washington Forensics Association Rules found here: https://wiaa.com/ConDocs/Con1144/2019-20%20Bound%20for%20State%20Regs.pdf.

EDITORIAL COMMENTARY:  A scripted speech which is intended to be an analysis of a news event rather that a running synopsis of news. Speakers will read their manuscript from a seated position. The script should be timed to end between 1:45 and 2:00. Any speaker ending before 1:45 or after 2:00 shall be ranked one score lower. There is only open division for this event.

INFORMATVE: A speech that is designed to be informative in nature. Visual aids and note cards are permitted, but are not required. Time: ten minutes (10) maximum, with thirty seconds (30) grace.

DRAMATIC INTERP:  One or more cuttings from a published play, prose, poetry, TV, or radio script, which is serious in nature. The presentation is MEMORIZED. Time: ten minutes maximum with 30 seconds grace.  Novices may use scripts. 

DUAL INTERP:  A cutting from a published play, prose, poetry, TV, or radio script, which may be either humorous or serious in nature. The selection must be memorized but given without props or costumes. Time: ten minutes (10) maximum with 30 seconds grace. We are currently planning on allowing submissions of videos filmed either with both students together on camera or split screen. Judges will be instructed to not favor either method. If COVID restrictions change, we may change this.  If you need help figuring out how to film a duo with this limitation, check out some advice from the NSDA. https://www.speechanddebate.org/duo-interp-split-screen-demo-nats-2020/

  Novices may use a script.

EXTEMPORANEOUS:  Thirty minutes before speaking time, each speaker will select a topic from a choice of four. Questions will be based on current events of the last three months. Speaker will be expected to organize and analyze material relevant to the subject area and answer the chosen question. One note card for novices only is permitted. Time: seven minutes (7) maximum, with thirty seconds (30) grace.  

ORATORY:   An original speech designed to persuade—that is, to change or reinforce an existing belief, to eulogize, to cause agreement with speaker’s position, or to motivate to action. Notes may be used in Novice Oratory. Time: ten minutes (10) maximum, with 30 seconds grace.

IMPROMPTU:  Student will enter the room and be given a choice of three topics. The student will choose a topic and have six minutes to prepare and speak on the chosen topic. Time may be used in any manner the speaker chooses (example-2 minutes prep and 4 speaking or 4 minutes prep and 2 minutes speaking). Time: six minutes (6) maximum, with thirty seconds (30) grace. This event will be done live on Saturday.

HUMOROUS INTERP:  One or more cuttings from a published play, prose, poetry, TV, or radio script, which is humorous in nature. The presentation is MEMORIZED in open, but novices may use scripts. Time: ten minutes with 30 seconds grace. Novices may use scripts. 

Programmed oral interp: At least one cutting of prose and one cutting of poetry and/or drama linked thematically. We will follow WSFA rules. Time: ten minutes maximum with thirty seconds grace.

Video backups will be due the week of the tournament. More info will be posted soon. 

REGISTRATION INFORMATION/TOURNAMENT ENTRY FEES

Every school is required to pay a $30.00 SCHOOL ENTRY FEE. The fee for each individual event and congress is $10.00. One person doing two events= $20.00. The fee for Dual Interp is $15.00 per pair. Each CX or PF debate team is $20.00. An LD entry is $10.00. Make checks or Purchase orders payable to Edmonds School District, C/O Edmonds-Woodway HS Speech and Debate.  Please mail your check or purchase order to . Please make sure you purchase order arrives by Wednesday, November 2nd.

All registration will be done through www.tabroom.com. If you do not have an account at the site, follow the instructions to create one and then click on the Edmonds-Woodway Invitational link to register. Please email Derek Hanson at derek.hanson@sno.wednet.edu if you need help.

Registration Deadlines

Registration Deadline: Wednesday, November 10th at 5:00 PM.   

Fees will be assessed at 9 PM on Nov 10th.  Any drops after that time will be included in the fees. Please notify us of drops as soon as you know of them. Any changes on Friday the 4th should be emailed to derek.hanson@sno.wednet.edu. DO NOT make changes on the web site on Friday!  You may also contact me via phone on Thursday or Friday at (425) 218-7534. I work for a living so I may not answer during school hours, so leave a callback number or just text your question. In general, email is preferred.

CASCADE COMMONS: You can find information on Cascade Commons, our tournament hosting site, here: https://www.cascadecommons.org/ Closer to the event, you’ll be required to submit a spreadsheet of all attendees from your school- Coaches, Judges, Observers, and Competitors. This will allow us to control access to the site so that only authorized users are able to gain access. This will also allow users to move between rooms as needed, meaning that it’s once again possible to see your students compete! Prabhat, the developer of this site, is a local debate coach as well and is on-hand for any support issues, should they arise during the tournament.

JUDGING: Each school is required to provide one judge for every two debate teams entered. In individual events, one judge is required for each 4 IE’s entered.  One student doing two events counts as two contestants. A Dual Interp pair is counted as one entry. Schools are responsible for ensuring that their provided judges are trained and prepared for their assigned judging roles. One judge needs to be available for every 5 Congress entries. All ballots will be submitted electronically via Tabroom, so please ensure judges have accounts ahead of time. We also highly recommend that judges take the NFHS judging course found here: https://nfhslearn.com/courses/adjudicating-speech-and-debate

I cannot emphasize this enough; PLEASE TRAIN YOUR JUDGES! The beginning of the tournament is not the time to get judges on Tabroom. We want this to run smoothly, just as you do, and the best way to help ensure that is to have everyone familiar with their software and role.

Judges may only judge 1 division of debate but may also cover speech. Make sure your speech judges know that they must be able to judge speech live all day on Saturday.

Time Commitments

Debate judges must be able to judge Friday night and Saturday. You may split these commitments between days.

Speech judges must be able to judge all day Saturday. You may split these between morning (round 1 and 2) and afternoon/evening (round 3 and finals).  

DIVISIONS:  Novice division is open to any student who has not competed in debate before the current school year or attended a summer debate camp/workshop. Open IE’s are for all contestants, regardless of prior experience. If a student competed last year in anything for 6 or more rounds, they must be in open division. Novice IE entries must be in the first year of competition.

AWARDS:  Awards will be given to all finalists in Individual Events and breaking students in debate. They will be purchased and distributed after the tournament. Please be patient with us, this is a new world. Awards will range from certificates to plaques or trophies depending on event and level. They may also include medals, key chains or other types of awards. Local awards will likely be distributed to coaches while those going farther will be mailed.

Tentative Schedule

We will not start before 3:00 PM Friday or 8:00 AM Saturday, but we may adjust this schedule between now and the tournament. If we have the judges, we may try to single flight some divisions of LD and Public Forum.

Wednesday November 10^th

9:00 PM           Duo and backup videos due

Friday, November 12th

2:00-2:30 PM: Debate Check in

3:30                  Debate Round 1, Congress session 1 (LD and PF double flighted)

5:45                   Debate 2

6:00                   Congress Session 2

8:00                   Debate 3

Saturday, November 13th

7:30-7:45 AM Online Check in

8:00                   Speech 1

9:30                   Debate 4 (super congress 1)

11:30                 Speech  2

1:00                   Debate 5 (super congress 2)

3:00                   Speech  3

4:30                   CX sems/finals. LD and PF Quarters.  

6:00                   Speech finals

7:15 PM            CX Finals, LD and PF sems (If applicable)

8:30 PM            LD/ PF Finals

8:30 PM            Awards  

Policy Judges are obligated for all out rounds. LD and PF judges are obligated for two rounds past the elimination of their last competitors.