By Eric Pearson
staff writer
 |
| Casey Ballor, Cody Thornell, Ben Piela, Norah McCarty, and Bella Trestrail |
The Northview debate team members have the answers. They have just concluded their season after 20 separate competitions, all circling around the issue of how to handle policy with the influential nation. Now the team is preparing to compete in three more tournaments, including a national tournament at Michigan State University.
The varsity team, with a record of 11-9, is made up of two seniors, Carson McCreedy and Lauren Hale, and two juniors, Leo Duran and Mitchell Baty. These Wildcats are old hands at the club that senior Lauren Hale describes as, “incredibly competitive”. They have all been members since their freshman year and have debated on the topics of Latin America, Domestic Security, and Ocean Development.
The novice team, roughly equivalent to a junior varsity team, is made up of freshmen Cody Thornell, Casey Ballor, Norah McCarty, and Bella Trestrail as well as junior Ben Piela. They finished with a record of 14-6.
The normal policy debate season, now concluded, is in the OK Metro league which has 14 schools and bi-weekly competitions all focused on the topic of that year, this year’s topic being China. One team will argue for a specific policy and the other team will argue against it; points are awarded by judges for the persuasiveness of the argument and the speaker.
However, despite club members researching and locking horns on this singular subject for weeks, they aren’t eager to proselytize. This may be because each debater needs to be able to argue both sides of any issue and in tournaments, they may even be expected to fluidly transition from the pro to the con between rounds. The club isn’t wedded to any dogma, it is devoted to the rhetoric.
 |
| Junior Leo Duran |
However, these verbose Wildcats are facing challenges. Junior Leo Duran said, “The biggest issue that’s always been with our club is we don’t have a class.” That’s not for a lack of trying, every year a class called Rhetoric is offered to all grades. There simply aren’t enough signs ups for the class to be run. As a result, the club that Lauren Hale says helps students, “learn to be persuasive” and Mitchell Baty says helps students, “become a better public speaker” only has nine members.
Despite these setbacks the Northview Debate team would be the first to argue with anyone who underestimates them.
Photos courtesy of Mark Thrall
0 comments :
Post a Comment