That's All Folks

Sadly today was the last day of the Workshop. Students began the day by debating one final practice round, attending a question and answer seminar, and then serving in a judge mentoring role where they consulted with the instructor critic throughout the observation of a debate. After lunch, the students attended a lecture by Gary on how gender is neglected by global economic policies, which leads to the exclusion of non-market work and work done in the informal sector from international trade agreements. Before the day wrapped up, Mr. Timmons, Beena, Gary, and Katherine fielded questions from students on any loose ends that the students still wanted tied together.

We look forward to seeing you all on the circuit next year and wish you the best of luck!

Seeing Themselves in Action

The gang was treated to a special surprise today: all of the students were videotaped giving a rebuttal and had the opportunity to see themselves in action. Now, all of the small mistakes that the students didn't realize they were making were captured on tape for their viewing (dis)pleasure. This exercise helped focus attention on presentation skills and the arguments being made - each student got to see what the judge sees.

Today also focused on the 2NR with a seminar and drill to begin the day. After lunch, Neil gave a lecture on beating confusing positions followed by a drill where the students responded to certain parts of a sample "confusing" case. After dinner, Beena and Mr. Timmons lectured on crystallization with emphasis on some of the main issues from the video analysis from earlier in the afternoon.

The AR, File Research, and Practice Rounds

The groups split up this morning to either first attend a seminar on the 1AR or debate a practice round. The 1AR seminar covered topics such as issue selection and the importance of considering every argument in relation to others instead of binding oneself to going methodically "NC first and then AC." Everyone debated at least practice round before lunch. After lunch, the students undertook a 1AR drill in small groups. The rest of the day was spent researching for the file that each debater is preparing on a common LD issue. The research for the file is due today with the research for the theory file due tomorrow afternoon.

Improving Our Refutation and Word Economy

Tuesday began with a lecture by Neil about On-Case Refutation. As the students continue to debate practice rounds, they've been gradually improving their ability of taking out their opponent's arguments and diversifying their responses to case. Before lunch, the students ran a drill where they practiced making offensive and defensive responses to a case in small groups critiqued by an instructor. After lunch, the students ran another practice round, which was followed by a Word Economy Seminar. After the seminar, the students pulled out one of their old flows and re-gave a rebuttal while focusing on improving their word economy even if that meant speaking more slowly. After dinner, Jonathan Alston gave a spectacular lecture on dealing with lengthy frameworks that make a lot of arguments. His particular focus was responding to arguments labeled "a priori" and how debaters could deal with frameworks that made arguments independent of the standards.

File Research Begins

This morning half of the students attended a research seminar in order to reinforce the importance of research and cutting quality evidence. During that time, the rest of the group met in the library to begin working on the file they are preparing on a recurring topic in LD. Some of the topics include: Capitalism/Marxism, Theories of Justice and Democracy, Social Contract, Logical Fallacies, Moral Agency, Relativism, Nietzsche and Foucault, International Relations, and Deontology and Consequentialism. After half of the group finished the research seminar, they joined the rest of the group in the library to work on their file under the guidance of one of the instructors. After lunch, the students attended a lecture on positional take-outs and then practiced making positional take-outs in small groups. Also, before dinner, the students debated another practice round. After dinner, Neil led a video analysis of the semifinal round from the 2005 TOC where a discussion followed each speech delving into the strategy of their argumentation.

The Third Week Begins

Although many of our students opted to only spend two weeks at UNT this summer, a number of students are staying for the third week of the institute. The third week combines even more personalized attention in addition to an intensive workload that will fine-tune the practices learned in the first two weeks. Aaron Timmons, Beena Koshy, Neil Conrad, Gary Johnson, Katherine Thompson, and David McGough are all remaining in Denton, TX for another week.

While the two week students left on Saturday morning, the three week students began their day at 1pm to allow a little extra time for some rest. Many of the students were given new case assignments by Neil to write different positional cases than the ones written in the previous two weeks.

On Sunday, all of the students turned in copies of their cases to be revised by the staff. This revision followed many revisions by previous lab leaders and self-revision after the practice round and tournament round critiques. There was noticeable improvement in all of the cases from the first draft from what seems like quite a while ago. Today continued with practice rounds, an advanced standards and casing lecture by Neil Conrad, guided library time for topic specific research, more practice rounds, a lecture on counterplans by Aaron Timmons, and an argument drill to end the evening.

Check out the pictures from the previous two weeks.

The End of the Show

The institute ended Friday night with all of the students observing the final round between Todd Liipfert from Strake Jesuit and Arti Bhatia from Colleyville-Heritage. On a 3-2 decision, Todd was crowned the champion of the 2007 UNT Workshop Tournament. Congratulations to both debaters!

Thanks to all of the students who chose to attend UNT this summer. On behalf of the staff, we very much look forward to seeing all of the debaters on their respective circuits next year winning rounds and hopefully becoming smarter individuals by engaging in intellectual discussions a couple of weekends a month.

A number of students are staying for the third week of the Workshop, so stay tuned for continued updates and photos.

Octafinal Results:
Bhatia def. Khurram Ali
Smogard def. Lauren Mahomes
Liipfert def. Ryan Bennett
Cook def. Grant Grosgenbauer
Tyger def. Adrienne Kearny
Ho def. William Hix
Zaman def. Rahim Sayani
Kaz def. Louis Paine

Quarterfinal Results:
Bhatia v. Cheryl Kaz
Zaman def. Danielle Smogard
Liipfert def. Vivian Ho
Cook def. Paul Tyger

Semifinal Results:
Bhatia def. Tyler Cook
Liipfert def. Shadman Zaman

Final Round:
Todd Liipfert def. Arti Bhatia on a 3-2 decision (David McGough, Josh Anderson, Liz Mullins, *Chetan Hertzig, *Laura de la Cruz)

Champion: Todd Liipfert

Preliminary Rounds Conclude

The preliminary rounds for the Workshop tournament concluded today with a tough break to octafinals from a field of 100+ debaters. Throughout the day, the students debated rounds 3,4, and 5 and met with their labs in between rounds. After a tough five rounds and some surprises, 16 debaters remain to debate tomorrow morning at 10am. It took a 4-1 record with 85 adjusted speaker points and 142 total speaker points to advance. Four debaters with a 4-1 record did not clear.

The qualifiers for elimination rounds:
Adrienne Kearny (Meadows)
Arti Bhatia (Colleyville)
Cheryl Kaz (Newburgh)
Danielle Smogard (Southlake Carroll)
Grant Grosgenbauer (Crowley)
Khurram Ali (Colleyville)
Lauren Mahomes (Greenhill)
Louis Paine (Stoneman Douglas)
Paul Tyger (Strake Jesuit)
Rahim Sayani (Colleyville)
Ryan Bennett (Southlake Carroll)
Shadman Zaman (Sacred Heart)
Todd Liipfert (Strake Jesuit)
Tyler Cook (Salado)
Vivian Ho (Marcus)
William Hix (Grapevine)

The consensus among all of the staff is that every debater we've seen has drastically improved since first arriving, so while only 16 debaters advanced to elimination rounds, every student will be advancing to elimination rounds throughout the next school year.

Congratulations to all!

The Tournament Begins

Today the debaters showcased their skills from the previous 11 days in the first two of five of the preliminary rounds for the Workshop tournament. All of the students debated two rounds today in front of critics. For lunch, all of the labs went off campus for a lab lunch with their labs and lab leaders. We enjoyed such delicacies as Taco Cabana, Jack-in-the-Box, and Subway. To celebrate the independence of our nation, the students ended the day at 5pm. After dinner, they watched the movie Blood Diamond and observed a firework display at the UNT football stadium.

An Entire Day Without Rain

Labs met to begin the morning where students worked on their cases, wrote out extensions, continued working on blocks, and had their revised cases once again read over by their lab leaders. Electives preceded lunch. The following electives were offered:

Running and Answering Kritiks in LD – Josh Anderson
Running and Answering Multiple apriori arguments – Kris Wright and Nathan Abell
Presentation Practicum – Jennifer Love and Liz Mullins
Drill Round Up – Shane O’Neal and Gary Johnson
Issue Selection and Time Allocation – David McGough
Social Contract – Eric Melin

The afternoon consisted of practice rounds where every student debated at least once against a student from a different lab. This was in preparation for the workshop tournament which begins tomorrow morning. Students debated more practice rounds after dinner and ended the night in lab recapping their successes and shortcomings of the day to be prepared for tomorrow morning.