Speech Camp Talks
Most of these talks come with activities, some more active than others. You are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing conducive to movement.
Professional Presentation Skills - In this highly interactive session, you will learn the mannerisms of professional speakers. In the activity, everyone will get a chance to speak and be evaluated. We can all improve our presentation skills, and we will do this in a fun and relatively safe environment.
SCORREing Your Speeches Part 1 – Studies show that most people leave a talk without knowing what the objective of the speaker was. On top of that, 50%+ of the speakers can’t state their objective in just a couple sentences. This method forces you to actually make sense and give a memorable speech. Learn to SCORRE your talks and get some practice in this talk and exercise.
SCORREing Your Speeches - Practice - This session will take you through preparing and giving a short speech using the SCORRE Method.
Story-Branding Your Speeches - Whether you are in Speech, Debate, interviewing for a job, marketing, or a myriad of other things, understanding the power and importance of Story will help drive your narrative. Knowing your part of the story, as well as those around you can set you up for success. Be prepared for a really fun activity too.
Goals and Achievement Part 1 & 2 - Many who set their goals never complete them. The reason? They don't have a good written plan. These sessions will teach you how to set and achieve not only your Speech and Debate goals, but this can be used for ANY goal.
Application and Activities - This will be a full day of applying what was learned in the previous lessons. We will see how this all applies to Limited Prep, Platforms, as well as Interps. We will also look at cutting, blocking, acting, etc.
Everything You Do Matters - Speech and Debate is so much more than winning competitions, or even learning how to speak confidently, think critically, and persuade effectively. It really comes down to the "why" we want to learn to use these tools effectively. No matter what you do, or don’t do, every action you take, or don’t take, matters. Make every single day count.
Policy Debate Camp Talks
General Sessions Talks will be attended by everyone, LD and Policy
LD Debaters will be in a separate area for the LD sessions
Seven Principles - (General Session) - There are seven principles that will help you succeed not only in debate, but for everything you do. Since these are truly principles, they work every time they are tried, and will work against you if they are ignored.
The Biblical Role of Government - (General Session) – God set up five different types of government for us. Each has a leader, a task, and a tool for discipline. Understanding these jurisdictions will go a long way to helping you understand how to do academic debate more effectively. Not only will you be able to write stronger cases, and be able to anticipate the negative strategy, but this will carry into your everyday life by gaining understanding why there are so many crises in every sector of society, and what needs done to begin the process of restoration.
Understanding The Constitution - (General Session) – This document is the foundation of our federal government and is overtly or covertly present at every debate round. If knowledge is power, gaining more understanding of what our government is supposed to do as opposed to what they are doing will strengthen your AFF case as well as your NEG strategy. This can also satisfy the school requirement for Constitutional Study. Come and discover some of the genius of this founding document.
Policy Resolution Overview – This is a 90-minute session on the current Policy Debate resolution for your organization for the upcoming season. I will give some history, current issues, as well as some possible case ideas.
Intro to Policy – In this session we will analyze the general form of a Resolution and why that’s important, the general structure and pattern of a debate round, and general debate theory including defining some key terms, understanding the structure of an argument, 4-Point Refutation, the two components of the Affirmative.
The Stock Issues – This session will focus on the explanation and importance of the Stock Issues for both AFF and NEG, and how these tools are a part of every debate round, even if the terms are not used.
Affirmative Case Structure - In this talk we will cover the four main case structures, as well as how and when to use each structure.
Beginning Negative Strategy - The main tools for the Negative team are the Stock Issues. However, using these tools effectively will help you win many more rounds.
Beginning Cross-Ex - Cross Examination can be one of the most powerful tools in a debate round. It can be the difference between winning and losing. In this session we will look at the strategies of purpose, preparation, and procedure when approaching this most important time in a debate round.
The following three sessions are for intermediate to advanced debaters and will occur in a separate room during some of the novice debate sessions.
Advanced Debate Theory – This session will help intermediate and advanced debaters get to the next level. We will look at, among other things, debater personality, reading the judge, theory debate, and more.
Advanced Negative Strategies – Besides the “hand tools” discussed in “The Negative” talk, there are also some “power tools” that can be used by more experienced teams. We will look more into advanced Inherency Presses, Workability, Evidence Evaluation, Impact Calculus, DisAds, Shell and Extend, and how to research in order to utilize these tools.
Winning Cross-Ex – Every CX can be won by either the “examiner” or the “witness.” There are good strategies that can be utilized by experienced debaters that will enable them to win more Cross-Ex times, including lines of questioning, forcing a stance, how to answer tough questions, understanding the objective, the use of rhetoric, and more.
Research Camp
Intro to Research – This lesson gets into research, evidence, evidence standards, formatting, and organization. We will also delve into how to research in terms of letting the evidence direct you, rather than you trying to force the evidence.
Debate Research Camp - A full days worth which includes slightly abbreviated versions of the talks “Follow the Evidence,” “Writing the 1AC,” “The AFF Plan,” and “The Negative.” The students will spend time researching for the current resolution, by the end of the day the group will have written 2-3 full Affirmatives (1AC as well as 2AC supporting evidence) and a Negative for each AFF.
Debate Practice – Students will be divided into teams and will debate one of the cases they wrote during research camp. This will provide a great opportunity to evaluate the AFF and NEG as written. There will be some time devoted at the conclusion for evaluation and ways to improve each side.
Parliamentary Debate
Principles of Parli – There is a reason that Parliamentary Debate is reserved only for advanced competitors. Quite frankly it is because it is hard to do it well. In this talk we will examine the rules, principles, and strategies behind the Gov and Opp sides, what the purpose of each speaker entails, as well as how to prepare for each round.
Parli Practice Rounds - Let's put it all into practice. Two rounds of Parli will help develop and put into practice what the students just learned. Time for questions and evaluation will happen immediately after the second round.