Novice Public Forum Workshop

Friday, September 25 - Registration by email or phone between 3PM and 7PM PST. All payments must be brought in on Saturday morning before the conclusion of first session or entries will be pulled.

Saturday, September 26

ALL STUDENTS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A LEGALLY-CLEARED CHAPERONE FROM THE DEGREE-GRANTING INSTITUTION THEY ATTEND FULL-TIME (THIS MAY INCLUDE A PARENTAL GUARDIAN IF THE SCHOOL SAYS OKAY).

It is our hope to provide an opportunity for novices to participate in this weekend, despite the early date. With this in mind, we have taken our own Harker Novice Day, run by our coaches and team captains, and opened it up to the community. 

The goal of our ONE DAY Novice Workshop is to overview the basics of the debate event while creating a welcoming community for newer debaters. Workshop participants will be given skeleton cases during the sessions to work with and carve into their own.

Students may opt to register ahead of time with a partner for the First Year PF tournament experience where the students will use these cases they have developed to practice the skills of Public Forum debate. 

A Novice for purposes of this workshop is generally defined as students who have not competed in debate before. There may be exceptions and if you believe a student is still novice-eligible, we trust the judgement of a coach to place their students appropriately. 

In addition to the sessions and tournament experience, time is also allocated for novice students to observe varsity level Public Forum rounds. Because we use the September/October topic, students can use this experience to prepare for tournaments for the upcoming month.

Registration fees include food on Saturday as well as materials.

Students do not need to enter as a partnership for the workshop and may come without a partner. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT REGISTRATION FOR THE TOURNAMENT EXPERIENCE ON SUNDAY IS A SEPARATE REGISTRATION AND THOSE ENTERING IN PUBLIC FORUM MUST REGISTER WITH A PARTNER.