Speech and Debate Disclosure
Hannah Shoell, Hayden Warren
Room 202
Office Hours 7:00 – 7:30am, 2:30 – 2:55pm.
Course overview:
Welcome to speech and debate Miners! You have chosen a great opportunity to expand your abilities at public speaking, rhetoric, argumentation, and analytical thinking. Practice in these areas will be developed through in-class participation, discussion, afterschool practice, and at tournaments in the Salt Lake area. The goal of the class will be to improve student confidence in speaking and argumentation, in addition to familiarizing students with the 8 speech and debate events sanctioned in Utah.
Participation Fee:
Debate classes in the Jordan School District require a $100 participation fee. This fee covers all course materials, and transportation to and from tournaments. We will travel extensively within Utah from October to March. Varsity students have the option to participate in up to four out-of-state tournaments from October to March.
Afterschool Practices:
Practices for speech and debate will occur each Tuesday and Thursday from 2:30 – 4:30. Wednesday practices will be added one the season is underway. During the state and region tournaments students should expect to practice every night of the week. Students are expected to attend practice the week of a tournament that they will attend. Students are also expected to attend 8 practices per quarter.
Classroom Policies:
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any form. The first offense will result in failure of the assignment; further offenses will result in additional failure of assignments, or the class.
Be a good citizen—students are expected to actively participate in class, students will have to be individually motivated to work on independent projects, learn from their peers in small groups, and to perform their events in front of the class. Citizenship also encompasses student behavior as well; students should treat their school, peers, competitors, administrators and faculty, and their community with respect.
Language matters—We will not tolerate language that is disrespectful to groups of people or identities. We will discuss this during the start of the year. We find this to be the most disrespectful language—much worse than swearing.
Be safe—students will be expected to act in a manner that ensure their own safety, and the safety of their peers, at all times.
Cell phone use—We think there is a time and place in the academic setting for the use of cell phones. There will be times when we ask you to have your phones put away, there will be times when you are working on your own and you are allowed to have your phones out, listen to music, etc. If you are ever concerned or confused about what my expectations are at a particular time during class, please ask.
Our thoughts on this issue can change based on your behavior and abuse of that in our class. If you are on task, in periods where there is individual work we will not be watching to take your cell phones from you. If people in the class abuse this privilege than it will be revoked. We reserve the right to amend this policy at any time.
Grading:
Students grades will be assigned as follows:
(A) – 100-93
(A-) – 92-90
(B+) – 89-87
(B) – 86-83
(B-) – 82-80
(C+) – 79-77
(C) – 76-73
(C-) – 72-70
(D+) – 69-67
(D) – 66-63
(D-) 62-60
(F) 59 and Below
Categories include participation, citizenship, assignments/homework, and reading.
Attendance:
Please read and understand Bingham’s official attendance policy
Late/Make-up work:
Students will be responsible to meet with one of us to discuss and complete their assignments as soon as possible on their return to school. Appropriate times to do this are from 7:00am to 7:30am before school, from 2:30pm to 3:00pm afterschool, and during certain class times when students are working on their individual assignments. If we ask you to come back at another time, it is your responsibility to follow up with us. Students that miss assignments and participation will have the opportunity to make up those assignments. They will either be allowed to complete that specific assignment or a replacement.
Assignments should be made up in a reasonable amount of time. It is at our discretion to determine what is reasonable. Examples of unreasonable requests to make up assignments are asking to complete assignments from the first part of the quarter at the end of the quarter. Unreasonable requests will not be accommodated.
Expectations:
1. Speech and Debate Tournaments—beginning students will be expected to participate in two tournaments in the first quarter (including the in-house scrimmage), two in the second quarter, and students will have more opportunities to participate with good behavior, hard work, and practice.
2. Tournament fees, students will be required to pay their participation fee as well as a $15 dollar fee to join the National Speech and Debate Association. Students should also be prepared to pay drop fees for tournaments they are forced to back out of that are beyond the drop deadline, the fee is $25. No additional punishments will be applied for a student that must drop from the tournament assuming they have already met their tournament requirements for the semester.
3. Transportation: Some tournaments will be bused; some will require students to make arrangements to and from the tournament with their parents. Students will be responsible for arranging transportation from afterschool practices.
4. Tournament Attire: Students should dress up at debate tournaments. The speech and debate competitions are professional activities and, like any other professional activity, require professional dress. Boys should be prepared to wear a dress shirt, tie or sweater (not hoodie), slacks, and dress shoes (no sandals, slippers, sneakers, or athletic shoes). Girls should be prepared to wear slacks, skirts or dresses. Skirts and dresses are to be of an appropriate length. Closed or open toe heels or flats are fine, but please do not wear sneakers, flip-flops, slippers, etc.
5. Tournament Conduct: At tournaments, like any other part of school, students are representatives of Bingham High School. Students are expected to follow all relevant school rules of extra-curricular activities, as well as our classroom rules and policies. Students should be prepared to follow additional norms and rules that are specific to the activities they participate in; the teacher will specify these at a later date. Students will follow all reasonable requests made by their coaches at debate tournaments.
Dress Code:
Students are expected to understand Bingham’s official dress code policies
Materials:
It is suggested that students have a lap top computer with Microsoft Office. Almost all of debate is paperless and this will make your life MUCH EASIER during the season.
Advanced Students
Advanced Students will be expected to carry out individual learning assignments throughout the semester. Their grade will be determined by demonstrating progress on those assignments. The four areas that those individual learning projects come from and examples of those assignments are below. Students should speak with me about other work that can fulfill those qualifications as well. Students will be expected to document their work in these four areas each week throughout the year.
Teaching—their event/others to the students
- construct a curriculum, including mini lessons on several topics
- demonstrate skills to students to model
- judge practice speeches and debates
- provide advice and constructive criticism for student improvement
- prepare curriculum for the summer/next season
Practice—maintaining their skills with practices both targeted and complete during the semester
- rebuttal redos
- practice debates/speeches
- analysis of judge comments, and planning how to implement their advice
- filming or recording their competitions and reviewing for a grade
- mini debates/speeches targeted at particular skills
Research—and development of positions, arguments, and speeches
- topic research
- construction of files/arguments
- developing new arguments
- updating and maintaining files
- scouting and preparing against specific teams in the district, state, and nation
Participation—at tournaments and in class
- lectures targeted towards older students
- current events discussions
- afterschool practices
- in some class assignments and discussion
Disclosure Signature
I have read and understand the policies in the disclosure.
Student Signature:
Date:
Parent Signature:
Date: