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Dear Coach,
Welcome to another season of speech and debate! Read on below for the latest news and resources from the NSDA.
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Build Your Team with Recruitment Tools Don't miss a few of our favorite tools to help recruit new members for your team this season!
Event Guides » Help students learn more about different competition events with our guides for high school or middle school!
Videos » Kick off your informational team meeting with one of our inspirational videos.
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Opt Out » No longer coaching at your school? Ask the advisor to take you off the roster and you'll also be removed from our coach email list!
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View Upcoming Tournaments » Head over to Tabroom.com to check out upcoming tournaments in your area, register, and get ready to compete.
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Apply to Host a Big Questions EventThe 2020 application cycle for Big Questions debate is now open! Big Questions is a debate format supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. In this event, high school and middle school students grapple with the intersections of science and philosophy. Programs can receive grant awards for participating in this event. Almost $1.5 million has been awarded to programs since 2016! Learn more about the format or to apply at www.speechanddebate.org/big-questions.
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Strategies for Remembering and Pronouncing Student Names There are plenty of new faces and names to learn at the start of a new school year! While mispronouncing a student's name may seem minor, correct pronunciation of names is crucial, particularly for students of color.
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"The names of white and nonwhite children alike are mispronounced, Kohli and Solórzano write, but the experience is much more damaging for a child who 'goes to school and reads textbooks that do not reference her culture, sees no teachers or administrators that look like her, and perhaps does not hear her home language,' since these cues (plus advertisements, movies and other indicators of societal values at large) already communicate 'that who they are and where they come from is not important.'
'How would you like me to say your child’s name?' is the specific wording Professor Kohli recommends for parents, and the following for students: 'I don’t know how to say your name yet, can you explain it to me? I’m working on learning it, and it’s important to me to say it the way it’s meant to be said, the way your parents say it.'"
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Read the Nationals Chronicle The 2019 National Tournament took us to the heat and hospitality of Dallas, Texas, and it was an incredible week of competition, inspiration, and connection. In this special issue of Rostrum, we recap the highlights of the week and celebrate our award winners! Read the issue »
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Tools to Train a New Crop of Judges We've partnered with the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) to bring you Adjudicating Speech and Debate, a course designed to provide judging guidelines, identify the different types of speech and debate events, and give guidance on what to note during a round. Visit www.speechanddebate.org/judge-training for more judge training resources.
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Event Spotlight: Policy Debate Policy Debate is a two-on-two debate where an affirmative team proposes a plan and the negative team argues why that plan should not be adopted.
What's unique about Policy Debate? Policy is the oldest debate event and one of the longest, with the typical round running between 90 and 120 minutes, including feedback from judges. It is generally known as the most research-intensive event, as students debate the same topic all year. Unlike traditional writing where the author may briefly quote or even paraphrase evidence, Policy Debate relies on the use of cards, or pieces of evidence directly quoted word-for word from the source.
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Depending on local styles, Policy can be a fast-talking event! With strict time limits and the need to present arguments supported by research, students will speak as efficiently as possible.
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Plan for National Hispanic Heritage Month
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In Case You Missed It: Membership Cycle Change Over the summer, we sent out communications regarding our new unified database of members that allows a person to maintain a single account (or digital identity) for the full duration of their membership—from middle school competitor, to high school competitor, to coach, all under the same merit number. In order to do that, we’ve had to make some fairly significant changes to the way our Honor Society functions. Read the whole message here if you missed it or check out the highlights below.
- Coaches now earn all points earned by students, not 1/10 of the points. As such, all point values for coaching degrees have been inflated by 10 (for example: a first Diamond is now earned at 5 years and 15,000 points, rather than 1,500). Current points earned by coaches will also increase by the power of 10.
- Starting with the second Diamond, all Diamonds will be earned in 30,000 (previously 3,000) point increments.
- The middle school points structure has changed. Previously, middle school points were worth ⅔ of high school events. The new structure values them at approximately ⅓ of high school events BUT students will maintain 100% of those points into high school, rather than transferring just 10% of those points.
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