Not to be outdone by Mia, it was also Luke Stuttgen's birthday, Thursday. Happy birthday, Luke! What better way to spend your birthday than teaching debate!
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As the 2012/2013 Season fast approaches, remember to order your 2012/2013 Topic Analysis Books for LD, PF, and Victory Briefs' Policy Files. Ordering a subscription not only gives you a substantial discount when compared to purchasing the books individually, but also means that the books will be delivered directly to your email as soon as they are released. Follow the links below for more information.
2012/2013 Lincoln-Douglas Topic Analysis Subscription
Congratulations to St. Louis Park's Leah Shapiro for championing the 2013 West Des Moines Valley Mid-America Cup over Collegiate's Andrew O'Donohue. The decision was a 2-1 for Leah (Legried, Hymson, *Melin). Leah is coached by Christian Tarsney and Charles McClung, and Andrew is coached by Aracelis Biel and Mark Gorthey.
The Federal Aviation Administration says you'll be allowed gate-to-gate usage of most of your personal electronics.
Congratulations to Apple Valley sophomores Prince Hyamang and Sophie Ober for closing out Minnesota's JV State Tournament. Prince and Sophie are coached by Chris Theis, Ed Hendrickson, Josh You and David Quinn.
In the Novice division Kiley Eichelberger a junior from Chanhassen defeated Edina Freshman Annie Amen in the final round to win the Novice State title. Congratulations to both debaters. Kiley is coached by Zach Prax
Congratulations to Cypress Woods' Xixiang "Shawn" Xiong for winning the 35th Isidore Newman Invitational! In finals, Shawn defeated Greenhill's Mitali Mathur on a 2-1 decision. Shawn is coached by Heath Martin and Jared Woods. Mitali is coached by Aaron Timmons and Rebecca Kuang. Isidore Newman is a semis bid to the Tournament of Champions.
Congratulations to Collegiate's Andrew O'Donohue for defeating Scarsdale's Noah Thaler to win the 2014 Columbia Invitational!
More and more, there appears to be disconnects between judges and debaters on the virtues of using theory as a strategy practice. Theory debate has steadily garnered the reputation as a frivolous, unpleasant practice, labeled as a tool employed to garner “cheap wins,” a “crutch” for those who lack substantive debate skills, and even a mechanism to exclude underprivileged debaters from the activity.
However, I find that a lot of these issues are not inherent either to theory debate or strategic theory debate, but the way debaters run these arguments. While it may occur much less frequently nowadays, excellent theory debate does exist. The goal of this article is to establish guidelines to help debaters improve on theory debate, should they choose to engage in it.
Congratulations to Collegiate's Andrew O'Donohue for defeating Scarsdale's Noah Thaler to win the 2014 Columbia Invitational!
More and more, there appears to be disconnects between judges and debaters on the virtues of using theory as a strategy practice. Theory debate has steadily garnered the reputation as a frivolous, unpleasant practice, labeled as a tool employed to garner “cheap wins,” a “crutch” for those who lack substantive debate skills, and even a mechanism to exclude underprivileged debaters from the activity.
However, I find that a lot of these issues are not inherent either to theory debate or strategic theory debate, but the way debaters run these arguments. While it may occur much less frequently nowadays, excellent theory debate does exist. The goal of this article is to establish guidelines to help debaters improve on theory debate, should they choose to engage in it.
Congratulations to American Heritage Plantation's Peregrine Beckett for winning the 2019 Mid America Cup. In finals, Perry (aff) defeated Needham’s Zachary Lu (VBI '18) on a 2-1 decision (Joe, Kaczmarek, Smith*). Congratulations also to Oak Hall's Kumail Zaidi for winning Top Speaker.
Full results and pairings can be found here.
Congratulations to Oak Hall Kumail Zaidi for winning the 2019 Greenhill Fall Classic. In finals, Kumail (aff) defeated Harvard-Westlake's Samantha McLoughlin on a 3-0 decision (Jackson, Okunlola, Randall). Congratulations also to Harrison's Ava Zinman for winning Top Speaker. She is an alumnus from our top LD lab this summer #RonnyandTheLack.
Congratulations to Santa Monica's Rex Evans for winning the 2019 Greenhill Round Robin. In finals, Rex (neg) defeated Edgemont's Riya Ganpati on a 2-1 decision (Myers, Roberts, Smith*).
Congratulations to all other participants on being invited to such a prestigious Round Robin, especially our VBI alumni Ben ('19), Tej ('18), Ava ('19),Akshay ('18) and Rex ('17)!
Full Pairings and Results can be found here.
Congrats to Success Academy’s Tajaih Robinson for winning Yale! He’s an alumnus from our top LD lab this summer #MAGDynasty. In finals, Tajaih (aff) defeated West Des Moines Valley's Animesh Joshi on a 2-1 decision (Ning, Orlowski, Shi*) Congrats to Tajaih for also winning Top Speaker!
Full pairings and results can be accessed here.
The 2019 September/October Lincoln-Douglas debate topic is, Resolved: In the United States, colleges and universities ought not consider standardized tests in undergraduate admissions decisions.
The 2019 September/October Public Forum Debate Topic is Resolved: The European Union should join the Belt and Road Initiative.https://www.speechanddebate.org/topics/
Voting for 2019-2020 LD topics ends on August 7th. To help voters fill out their ballots we asked a panel of distinguished VBI instructors to rank all of the potential topics and provide what their 'ideal slate' of topics from the list would look like.
We’re excited to announce that Victory Briefs Squads has opened applications for our Public Forum Squad for the 2019–2020 debate season. Squads gives debaters an opportunity to work with top coaches and collaborate as a team with other students from all over the country. Squad membership provides weekly Squad practices, frequent private coaching sessions, access to a curated shared Dropbox, guest seminars with championship level instructors and former debaters, many practice round opportunities, and case feedback.We are proud of our first year of Squads and the strong feedback participants offered. We frequently solicit feedback from our students to ensure the best possible experience and on our final student evaluation 100% of respondents indicated that they were glad they chose Victory Briefs Squads over other private coaching resources. Here’s what a member had to say about Victory Briefs Squads:
“Working with the coaches was really great. They were beyond helpful in both increasing my technical skill... and expanding my content knowledge… Overall, squads has really helped my improve my skills throughout they year and there’s no way I would have had any of the success I’ve achieved without the help”—David Edwards, Charlotte Catholic High School
Our primary PF coaches this season will include Krithika Shamanna and Bradley Tidwell. Students will also have the opportunity to attend guest seminars led by Anthony Berryhill, Matt Salah, Ellie Singer, Nick Smith, Chris Theis, and more TBA!The application will be on a rolling admissions basis, but spots are extremely limited, so we encourage you to apply quickly for the best chance at admission. You can apply to join the PF Squad here, or learn more at the VB Squads website. There are still a small number spots available in our LD Squad and you can find more info here.If you have any questions about Victory Briefs Squads, please email squads@victorybriefs.com.