Good Afternoon Dear Reader! I am sure that very few of you have actually missed me in the past two weeks as other wonderful writers have been able to ensnare and entice your mind into the wondrous possibilities of our future; however, the reason for my absence will be my topic for today, because what am I, dear reader if not a person who completes their article hyped up on caffeine and swing music. I was of course absent for my other extracurricular speech and debate. A common extracurricular amongst many of our members, speech, and debate is seen by many as simply a place where people practice doing the clubs namesake, speaking and debating, and while that is true, dear reader, this weeks entry will be diving into the nuances of an ideology that I feel is as true as time: Speech and Debaters are the future of our society.
Now whether you are a member of one of these teams, or you are simply someone who has enjoyed these entries, I will tell you now, dear reader, that I will stand by this claim; and while this may be a shorter entry than others (merely due to the review that it will be giving as opposed to argumentative), I hope that what I say here today helps to get the cogs turning, and possibly even prompt a younger audience into joining a team or a similar adaptation of the concept. So what is a speech and debate team? Well, while it might seem like the aspect of the team only goes as far as its namesake, I can assure you that first and foremost, speech and debate is a family. For myself, I could say dear reader that speech and debate have become a makeshift family of my own, offering comfort, encouragement, and backing in and outside of tournaments and school, but besides being a family the community of speech and debate is an outlet, connecting and cultivating the young minds of tomorrow. While the season has ended for me and my teammate's dear reader, the work and activism that my teammates and I do as a result of speech and debate. For example, my Duo Partner is now busy working to fight for legislation to stop climate change, specifically with a group that she was made aware of during a tournament. One of our alumni is in the running for the city council runoffs, and one had just won a seat on the governing board of my high school district, a friend of mine who does several speech events on the team, was the youngest intern to work for both their campaigns. On a personal note, if it wasn't for the friends that I had made through regional and national tournaments in speech and debate, I would not have the wonderful job of writing for you all now, as well as a job as a stenographer at a local law firm.
But of course, why don’t we explore how programs like speech and debate help you by fulfilling its namesake. Besides being like a second family and an outlet to find your way in the future, speech and debate fulfilled their namesake by simply teaching you how to speak to an audience and present a comprehensive argument for any situation. Speech of course circles a variety of different topics with such subjects as Humour (my own main event) providing an outlet for competitors to address and issue in a comedic sentence while drama does the opposite. With events like Program Oral Interp. (POI) and Poetry, one uses several articles of the past, similar to those that are written by your dear article staff, and compiles them into a 10-minute long performance circle, an issue while also telling a story. In debate, the topic becomes easier to understand with events such as congress, creating a mock house of representatives in which students have to present their viewpoints of arguments to the chamber. More intense forms of debate such as policy debate, occur for hours on end with rounds commonly reaching around 3 hours in length and discussing more philosophical topics, all of them quite mind-expanding. Of course, my dear reader, I could discuss these events in detail for hours on end, but since I am beginning to reign myself in I will leave the rest to your intrigue and any questions you may have to the comments. I always like to end my articles with this question but I would like to add the fact that everyone has a dream of a better tomorrow. Speech and debate is a way you can make it a reality.
stunning