Tag: debate

  • The Debate Team

    Throughout the month of September to March, our very own Debate team has been competing for a chance to compete for the state championships in April, which they succeeded in doing.  They’ve been discussing various speeches including bills and legislation and spontaneous argument also know as SPAR, which they have ten minutes to prep for. The topics could be random or in some cases picked from a list. Our team consists of thirty-two students, some being Samantha Williams, Inanna Khansa, Alexis Lam, and Althea Agul. This year two seniors being Inanna Khansa and Hamid Torabzadeh were both nominated to compete at state, which is a great opportunity for them to get experience and to build up their resumes. 

    In total there has been a number of 12 tournaments, which they succeeded in winning five. They been prepping once every week during their club and Alexander is proud of how far they have come. He said,” I believe some of my students can make it to the nationals and not just state.”

    Alexander has been competing at state and congress for 29 years and still is very passionate about it regardless of it being online last and this year. He said, “We have been having a good year and I’m very proud of how far we have come because my students have been working very hard.” Last year one of Alexander’s students was a semi finalist and considering it was online it was probably a tuff match. Aside from just teaching his kids tips about the competitions he helps distress them from any anxiety by getting them to the competitions in time, getting them plenty of food and water, and Lots of encouragement. 

    The sessions vary as they could range from an hour to an hour and a half. However each events are uniquely different. For example, A varsity level prompt two speech get two mins to prep, whereas a noves tournament  get five minutes to prep, which can be very impactful since the students are on a major time crunch. 

    Their last at state tournaments is a three day tournament from April 29 to May 1st and their last competition is the week right after being either the 6 or 7th of May. Around ten to fifteen students are going to Compete and the students are looking forward to it and many more.

  • Debate Team at Package Deal Tournament

    The Poly Speech and Debate team participated in the Package Deal tournament at Arcadia High School on October 12.

    Led by coach Brett Alexander, the Speech team competes in various tournaments throughout the course of the school year. These competitions usually consist of hundreds of students affiliated with the Southern California Debate League, all of whom specialize in one main event, whether it involves memorized speeches or improvised debate.

    The Package Deal competition, however, follows an unorthodox format of events to cater to the large amount of novice students. Instead of having each participant focus on one main event, this tournament has students competing in four, none of which require any prior preparation.

    “I liked how the competition was essentially stress-free. I just had to go in with a positive mindset and a drive to succeed,” said sophomore Carol Wersbe.

    Upon arrival, students dove right into the first event, Extemporaneous, which had competitors use articles on any given issue as the sole basis of their speech, followed by Interpretation, where anticlimactic stories of neutrality are brought to life through the speakers’ portrayal, imagination, and ingenuity.

    Afterwards, students competed in Impromptu, where students are given five minutes to conceive a speech on randomized topics. The competition culminated with Student Congress, an intense battleground of die-hard advocates engaged in insightful debate.

    Poly had a strong showing at this tournament; ten Poly students among the hundreds of other novices competed for the sake of gaining experience and establishing an interest in speech and debate. One student, freshman Zoe Adler, won an award for being the top speaker in her Congress round.

    “It was confusing at first with all the formalities. But I felt like I had gained valuable experience, and I look forward to future speech tournaments because of how much I enjoyed this one,” said Adler.

    The Speech and Debate team has had a long history of success. Former alumni have competed and won state-level tournaments and have gone on to attend prestigious universities such as Harvard, Stanford, and Duke.

    “We have a bunch of people who are interested in making Speech their primary activity. It’s always nice to see new and dedicated people,” said coach Mr. Alexander.