Full Results
Policy Debate
1st James Olsen and Chip Campbell
2nd Sean McKean and Megan Fergeson

Expository
1st Amanda Flores
Radio
Finalist Amanda Flores
Congressional Debate
Rachel Newcomb

Berkeley was a great trip and we hope to have photos soon to share with you. Both in state and out of state the kids have been having a great time. We are now heading into the busy qualifying tournaments of March and April.

In March students will attend the National Forensic League Northern Oregon District Tournament. This tournament will qualify students to attend the NFL Nationals in Dallas, Texas in June. It is a great honor to attend the tournament and the host city always puts on fun activities for the students to participate in after hours. March 17-19 the team will be at Mt. Hood Community College for NFL Districts. If you think you can come judge we could really use the help. Most rounds require three judges.

The next qualifying tournament is the Oregon Student Activities Association Districts on April 1st and 2nd at Tigard High School. Again our team will have entries and this tournament will help determine who will attend the State Tournament at Western Oregon University on April 22nd-24th. More details soon about these tournaments.

There is also a NFL Northern Oregon Congress to be held sometime in April. Yet another national qualifying tournament! Overall the busy weekend schedules should calm down for the next few months after this weekends tournament.

If we don’t see you before Spring Break, enjoy your vacations!

You can now help raise money for the TuHS Speech and Debate Team using TSO Scrip. I think most of you are familiar with Scrip from your elementary and middle school days. Please visit the TSO Scrip webpage to learn all about Scrip and to print out the Scrip order form: http://www.ttsd.k12.or.us/tualatin-high-school/parent-resources/scrip

Please note that TSO has now uploaded a new Scrip form to the website that shows Speech & Debate as an option to benefit from Scrip. TSO is also working on a new individual agreement form that will include Speech & Debate and you will need to fill that out soon.

Scrip order forms and envelopes for Scrip can be picked up at the TuHS library.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Derrick Olsen
Tualatin High Speech & Debate Team parent volunteer

First Congratulations to James Olsen. He broke to finals in Novice Impromptu. More congratulations go out to Megan Ferguson who placed 2nd Speaker in Policy Debate and Sean McKean who was 1st Speaker overall in Policy Debate. If you see them in the hall this week give them a pat on the back.

Another special note, this was Rachel Newcomb attended her first weekend tournament! We hope to see more of Rachel and her Oratory on endangered species in the future.

Ballots will be at school on Tuesday. Sign ups for McMinville this coming weekend can be sent to me. We will have a bus for this tournament and are going with Tigard. Also if you get the chance be sure to visit Panda Express Sunday afternoon and MudPuddle Toys and Books with your Tualatin tickets so that 20% of your purchase goes to the team.

“Following are the final results for the 2011-2012 national high school debate topic balloting. Ballots were first sent to states, the District of Columbia, the National Forensic League, National Debate Coaches Association and the National Catholic Forensic League last August. After a period of discussion of the two final topic areas, states conducted balloting in December and January. Results were sent to NFHS headquarters by January 4, 2011.
Space was chosen with 24 of the 34 votes cast for the topic”.
THE TOPIC

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.

Space exploration fires people’s imaginations. The 1969 moon landings rank as one of the highest achievements of modern civilization. There is something uncanny about the human need to explore the universe. Discussing space exploration and development would have the same effect. A topic like this could spark the imagination of potential debaters, and the easy accessibility of materials would make the learning curve on the subject manageable. This is a critical time in the United States space program. The status of the National Aeronautics and Space and Administration is in limbo, especially concerning human spaceflight. The Space Shuttle is retiring in the fall of 2010, with no possible US replacement available before 2015. In addition, NASA has an unclear mandate/direction to explore either the Moon or Mars. This is balanced against NASA’s recent success with robotic exploration, such as the Mars rovers and the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as increased private sector growth. Affirmative cases could include astronomical surveys, setting new goals for human spaceflight, using new probes to examine celestial bodies in our solar system or beyond, and developing space economies. The technological and economic benefits of the space program are well documented. Negative arguments could include the increased militarization of space, the significant cost in money and resources, timeframe arguments and the need to focus more on problems concerning the Earth, such as climate change.

To do this they utilize famous Oxford Union Chamber debate format. The format for a chamber debate is this. There are two teams. One is the proposition that speaks in favor of the motion, resolution, or topic. The other side is the opposition.  Teams consist of up to four debaters for each side who are allowed to speak up to 10 minutes each. The President of the Union often serves as the chair or moderator of the debate.

I recently watched portions of one debate on the resolution,  “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”. It was a good match up between:  Archbishop John Onaiyekan and the Rt Hon. Ann Widdecombe MP for the proposition and Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry for the opposition.

Here is the link to the debate summary. A vote is taken prior to the debate to gauge the viewpoint of the audience and another is done concluding the debate to see if anyone has had a change of opinion thanks to the debate.
Some of the video can be found on Youtube.
Here is some of Archbishop Onaiyekan’s remarks:

Here is some of Mr. Fry’s speech.

Who is right? Who is wrong? That’s for the individual to decide. There are a myriad of topics for debate that they sponsor. Some of the topics for 2011 include, “Iran is a paper tiger” and “South America will be the 21st century’s superpower”. Take a moment to explore their site and watch some of the videos.

Intelligence Squared is also being used in classrooms all around the UK. For a fee schools and other institutions are given access to their extensive catalog of debates for use in the classroom. They are also growing their academic functionality and hope to have curriculum developed for debate and individual subjects to help teachers plan lessons with the material.

These debates are not made for television, like many of the political debates you will see during an election that offer little substance and information. Instead the debates are simply filmed live and then screened on television, online, and in the classroom. Some 70 million viewers across the globe have already tuned in; will you be next?

For more information visit: http://www.intelligencesquared.com

All team members will be getting an email with pattern details for each tournament this week.

The tournaments occur in the following order:
Tigard Congressional Debate Tournament (weeknight)
Glencoe Tournament
Portland State Tournament
McMinnville Invitational

With Clackamas behind us now it is getting close to Winter Break. Soon it will be a time for relaxing for a bit with your families. Please enjoy winter break. Before we can leave on the 17th we need to do our best to balance out our books and get all our accounts squared away. Over the next week the team Treasurer, Erich Helmreich will be tracking members down who have not yet paid their team dues of $35.00 for the year. We would like to have our books as updated as possible by December 17th, so if you can get those in soon that will be helpful. All you need to do is give a check or cash to the school bookkeeper and she will record that you have paid.  Also you can turn in your participation agreements to any team officer or to my mailbox if I am not there to collect them.

We will be paying our NFL Dues in the next week and that will enable us to enter NFL points and accept new members, so we will also be sending a check for all new members. It is very important that you have paid your team dues because your NFL membership is included in that $35 dollars.

Meeting: All TEAM MEETING ON THE 4th of January (Late Start Day) Meeting will be at 7:20am in RM 221

We will go over the next month of tournaments and also hear from our Berkeley Trip planners.

Our  tournaments for January:

January 13 Tigard HS Student Congress

January 15 Glencoe HS Tournament

January 21-22 PSU Viking Invitational

January 29 McMinnville HS Invitational

At PSU and Glencoe everyone should be able to enter two events regardless of what event you enter. So if you are a debater and haven’t had to think about a second event until now use Winter Break to pick a second event to do at these tournaments.