Leatherstocking Forensics League Virtual February

2025 — NSDA Campus, NY/US

Leatherstocking Forensics January

Virtual Tournament

Registration by 8:30 am, Opening Meeting via Google Meet at 8:30

Round 1 begins at 9 am.

Dear Forensics Community,

We are pleased to invite you to Leatherstocking Forensics League’s February Virtual Tournament.

Entry fees are $5 per student. In the case of virtual or asynchronous tournaments, downloadable certificates will be emailed to coaches.

Entries and judges are due by 8 pm, Thursday 2/6/2025. The tournament start time is 9 am, and everyone should be logged into the meet by 8:40, extemp prep and sports extemp prep will begin at 8:45. That will have speaker one at about 9:15. Everyone else will start at 9 am.

Debaters will debate the NSDA topics for February in both PF and LD.

We are hosting some new events to encourage new students to get started. These include:

  • Storytelling

  • Sports Extemp

  • Sight Reading

  • Sales Pitch

  • We will also offer Junior High (7th and 8th grade) events in Sight Reading Duo Interpretation, Extemporaneous, Oral Interpretation, Declamation, and Impromptu.

This is to encourage additional participation and the development of programs and opportunities. Offerings will be based on the sole decision of the host team coach in conjunction with the LFL Tournament Director, Suzanne Culver.

Sight Reading: The tournament provides a different literary text for each round. Competitors shall be given one minute to review the literature, and then create an interpretation-based performance of that literature. While the preparation time is limited to one minute, the duration of the performance should be dictated by the length of the literature provided (i.e. there is no time limit to the performance, only the prep time. Tournaments should keep this in mind when selecting literature). The tournament will provide the same piece of literature to all competitors in each round. (This will run similarly to impromptu speaking)

Storytelling - A memorized performance of a single published, printed story, anecdote, tale, myth, or legend. The story may be delivered standing or seated, thus one chair is permitted, however, this is not an acting event; thus, no costumes, props, lighting, etc., are to be used. Maximum time is 5 minutes including introduction. This event is designed to create a storytelling scenario that uses the competitor's commitment to bringing a narrative to life for a child of approximately ages 3-7.

Sports Extemp - Similar to extemporaneous but all topics will be drawn from the last six weeks of Sports Headlines.

Sales Pitch - Competitors will have 30 minutes to prepare both a 30-second elevator pitch along with a subsequent 3-minute sales pitch. Topics will generally be new inventions, technological breakthroughs, or identified community or societal needs. All rounds will be run similarly to extemporaneous.

REMINDERS FOR ALL JUDGES -POINTS MUST BE AWARDED TO EACH SPEAKER:

JUDGING SPEECH ROUNDS:

  • Please enter points for each speaker, from 70 to 100. Your top speaker should receive the highest number of points. There are no ties. Think of it similar to a college grading scale:

    • 98-100% A+

    • 93-97 A

    • 90-92% A-

    • 88-89% B+

    • 83-87% B

    • 80-82% B-

    • 78-79% C+

    • 73-77% C

    • 70-72% C-

  • Please write a minimum of 30 words of feedback on ballots. You will be asked to add more feedback if there are not at least 30 words per ballot.

  • In your feedback, please try to give competitors positive feedback AND constructive criticism of things they should work on.

  • Judges are still responsible for timing pieces. PLEASE CLARIFY TIME SIGNALS with your competitors before they begin speaking.

DEBATE POINT VALUES

  • Please enter points for each speaker, from 22 to 30. Your top speaker should receive the highest number of points. There are no ties - IN PF you can use .5, but every speaker has to have a different number. Think of it similar to a college grading scale:

    • 30 A+

    • 29 A

    • 28 A-

    • 27 B+

    • 26 B

    • 25 B-

    • 24 C+

    • 23 C

    • 22 C-

The cost is $5 per student and payments are accepted by check to Leatherstocking Forensics League or Venmo to @sculver135

If you have questions about the tournament, please contact Suzanne Culver at sculver135@gmail.com or sculver@leatherstockingforensics.com.

Thank you!