Tag: Speech and 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.

  • Let’s Have that Speech!

    On January 25, Poly’s speech and debate team competed in the Spring Debate Competition.
    At this competition, sophomore Dana Kriebel and freshman Inanna Khanas made debates regarding three topics.
    The topics covered: the ethics of responsible gun ownership laws, birthright citizenships, and the Paw Act, the act that gives service dogs to veterans. Dana Kriebel won 14th out of about 65 competitors in the novist portions. Inanna won 26th which is a great achievement considering this being her first year. During this competition, 23 schools were present.
    Inanna and Dana both agreed that they “debated [their] best that [they] could have.”
    The debate for them wasn’t easier nor hard because they were about to come up with accurate evaluations in their arguments.
    They do plan on going to finals in their league.
    These two will participate in a Novice Tournament at Millikan on February 23rd. Those two, along with the whole novice debate team will suit up and perform their best at this tournament.
    The varsity debate team, last Saturday, at Arcadia High School, participated in the Spring Speech.
    There was about “4 inches of rain, but that did not stop us” said Speech and Debate teacher, Brett Alexander.
    Coco Sanabria and William “Big Sexy” Terlinda spoke in the Impromptu Speak lasting in a 5 minute speech. According to Alexander, “Coco and Big Sexy will be ready for State qualifications, I believe in them.”
    The state qualifications will be on March 1 and March 2 at CSULB. This competition will bring out 1,600 people from all over Southern California.
    This debate will be for the varsity debate team. Alexander states that he agrees, “that Coco and William are capable of qualifying for state.”
    In the 25 years that Alexander has been here he’s had 3 state champs.

    By Syanne Patton
    Freshman, Inanna Khanas

  • Poly’s Day in Court

    On November 2 Poly’s mock trial team tackled the first round of the court case People vs. Davidson and were rewarded by a winning verdict. The trial happened at the Los Angeles Superior Court with real judges and attorneys.

    Charlie Dodson is an AP World History teacher and is the advisor of the mock trial club at Poly.

         “The Constitutional Rights Foundation sets this [mock trial] up every year,” Dodson said. “A competition for LA county, which over 60 schools participate in  and our school has participated for a number of years. Teams are divided into prosecution and defense. We are given a single case.”

         Sophomore Tammy Pham described the experience  she encountered as a member of the club.

    “You are presented with a case and you would have to go into court and present to the judge whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, depending on the side you are on,” said Pham.

    Poly’s mock trial team was given the case, People vs. Davidson, and Dodson explained that the case was centered around Casey Davidson’s felony of the murder of Alex Thompson with a walking stick.

    “The case was about murder,” he said. “There are forensic reports for the prosecution and a rebuttal. There are witnesses for the prosecution and for the defense. For round one, our job was to defend Casey Davidson, the defendant, to prove him not guilty by creating reasonable doubt, which we did.”

    Senior Marco Romero is the president of the Mock Trial club. He was on the defense team for the case and described the difficult, yet exciting experience.

    “I think it is a great way to expose people who either want to be lawyers, want to step out their comfort zone, or just want to get a taste of what lawyers do,” Romero said. “The competition is judged by a real life judge and scored by either lawyers or law students.”

  • 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.