By: Echo Rogers
It’s been two months of hard work; finally, they’re ready.
The Speech and Debate Club is ready to compete at their first competition on October 31, 2015. The three groups this year- Speech, Debate, and Dramatic Interpretation- have been practicing for months. During meetings, Speech practices their speeches they’ve written, Debate focuses on researching their topics, and Dramatic Interpretation focuses on practicing their pieces as well.
President of the Debate section, Colin Topper, said the club sections are very different. Each section of the club has so many different parts and rules that it was difficult to unify them as one club, he said.
Senior Brendan Twaddell runs the first group, Speech. Twaddell has been involved with the Speech section for three years. He works with the other kids, critiquing their speeches’ content and delivery.
“Most of the time spent in the club is workshop,” he said. This means a majority of the time members practice their speeches. Outside of club, members spend time writing them. Usually, it takes a few hours to write the 1300 word speech.
Normally, the members of the Speech section pick topics they truly have an investment in. “It’s all a
bout delivery,” Twaddell said, “so it helps to be passionate about it.”
Also, practice is essential according to Twaddell. “A speech isn’t like an essay,” he said. Because judges will only hear each speech once, the ideas must be clear, blatant, and logical.
The members of Dramatic Interpretation, unlike the members of Speech, do not produce their own writing. In this section, they use famous literary works to make two pieces. One must be on poetry and the other must be about a larger work (also known as prose).
Additionally, members could work for several months to put together one piece. Each piece must contain certain components. Both the poetry piece and prose piece include an introduction, which is the only section of their own creation. It’s also the only part they must memorize. The introduction includes the context of the book, the title, and the author.
Besides the introduction, the poetry piece includes several whole poems. Each poem has to connect to a similar theme. Prose, however, includes several parts from a single book.
Both pieces are chosen because they are the most impactful and emotional part. This is critical because Dramatic Interpretation members’ goal is to act out their pieces with emotion.
Although she has only spent a year in the club, HHS Junior Emily Higgs is head of Dramatic Interpretation. Higgs believes it’s important to put yourself in the piece. “It sounds cliche,” she said, “but it’s important to be the piece.”
When the Dramatic Interpretation section practices, they critique each other. Higgs said they also spend a good amount of their time breaking down the piece in order to understand their pieces and the emotion in them.
Similarly to Dramatic Interpretation, there are several parts to the Debate section: Public Forum and Lincoln Douglas. Public Forum is a two-on-two debate. Their debates center on numbers, money, and statistics. Two teams are attending the competition on Saturday. Lincoln Douglas, on the other hand, is a one-on-one debate about moral arguments. Only Topper will be attending Lincoln Douglas.
In meetings, Debate members read new information or tear down each other’s arguments to truly understand them. Since a debate usually lasts an hour, they can’t formally have a debate.
Instead, the Debate section asks lots of questions so they can fully understand the argument. If they don’t understand, it makes the debate difficult. It’s hard to counter an argument you don’t really understand, Topper explained.
Overall all three sections of the club are excited to go to the competition on Saturday. As Higgs concluded, “..we go to the awards ceremony and we win.”