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Final Forensics Tournament (2010-2011)
Mar. 27th, 2011 10:50 pmThe final forensics tournament of this school year was held between Thursday and Saturday this past week/weekend. I ended up judging eight rounds altogether. None of those eight were repeated. All in all I judged domestic extemporaneous speaking, duo, dramatic interpretation, humorous interpretation, international extemporaneous speaking, Lincoln-Douglas debate, original oratory, and public forum, so only two debates -- not bad.
Extemp is done differently than when I was in HS -- back then, extemporaneous was one category; now it's/they're domestic and international extemps. Amusingly enough, I was discussing that with another judge, and she noted that when she did extemp, there were two categories: men's and women's. She graduated in '83, so that changed sometime before I competed in '88-'89. Also new: in the finals, at least of domestic extemp, one of the other competitors had three minutes to question the speaker.
There was one thing I found disconcerting about domestic extemp. I'm not sure if every single draw was Obama-related, but the six speeches we ended up hearing were all Obama-specific. I remember that when I did extemp they certainly asked questions about the sitting president, but also about other issues of the day. One I remember in particular was whether The Last Temptation of Christ should be banned. I mostly remember because I mentioned in my speech that I probably wouldn't get a chance to see it due to the protests, and the judge told me after the round that it was showing in a nearby city.
I've mentioned in a previous post how Duo was different. DI and HI are pretty much the same as they were back then, except that as I recall we had to remain stationary except for shifting to face different directions for each character. Now the students have about a three foot radius in which they can move about.
I'm not sure whether these differences are due to time, location, or faulty memories. Several judges who come from different areas have said that NM forensics are not like theirs, and one who was from the east coast and then Texas said that all three differed somewhat. I don't remember OO existing when I competed, though it could be that no one at our school competed in that particular event, or if someone did, I've forgotten. It's an interesting event, any which way. There's also an event which appears not to have survived, or which doesn't have enough interest in NM: oral interpretation. Although I never competed in OI, I miss it.
All of the rounds I judged save for one had panels of judges; three in the early rounds and five in the later for speech events, and a panel of three for LD finals. Public forum was the exception, and it's my guess that it didn't need multiple judges since it's a beginner event which isn't represented in nationals.
So long as they'll have me, I plan on judging next school year as well. Even though I still don't like debate, I enjoyed judging this year. Now I just need to figure out to do with my Saturdays until September.
Extemp is done differently than when I was in HS -- back then, extemporaneous was one category; now it's/they're domestic and international extemps. Amusingly enough, I was discussing that with another judge, and she noted that when she did extemp, there were two categories: men's and women's. She graduated in '83, so that changed sometime before I competed in '88-'89. Also new: in the finals, at least of domestic extemp, one of the other competitors had three minutes to question the speaker.
There was one thing I found disconcerting about domestic extemp. I'm not sure if every single draw was Obama-related, but the six speeches we ended up hearing were all Obama-specific. I remember that when I did extemp they certainly asked questions about the sitting president, but also about other issues of the day. One I remember in particular was whether The Last Temptation of Christ should be banned. I mostly remember because I mentioned in my speech that I probably wouldn't get a chance to see it due to the protests, and the judge told me after the round that it was showing in a nearby city.
I've mentioned in a previous post how Duo was different. DI and HI are pretty much the same as they were back then, except that as I recall we had to remain stationary except for shifting to face different directions for each character. Now the students have about a three foot radius in which they can move about.
I'm not sure whether these differences are due to time, location, or faulty memories. Several judges who come from different areas have said that NM forensics are not like theirs, and one who was from the east coast and then Texas said that all three differed somewhat. I don't remember OO existing when I competed, though it could be that no one at our school competed in that particular event, or if someone did, I've forgotten. It's an interesting event, any which way. There's also an event which appears not to have survived, or which doesn't have enough interest in NM: oral interpretation. Although I never competed in OI, I miss it.
All of the rounds I judged save for one had panels of judges; three in the early rounds and five in the later for speech events, and a panel of three for LD finals. Public forum was the exception, and it's my guess that it didn't need multiple judges since it's a beginner event which isn't represented in nationals.
So long as they'll have me, I plan on judging next school year as well. Even though I still don't like debate, I enjoyed judging this year. Now I just need to figure out to do with my Saturdays until September.
