Students are honing their skills by researching and crafting arguments to prepare for their upcoming congressional debate contest.
Sophomore Chloe Hibbs said she is preparing by writing speeches.
“I’m making sure that I’m writing speeches for each legislation,” Hibbs said. “I’m also going over my speeches with Mrs. [Leslie] Graham and Ms. [Carol] Cox so they can help me figure out how to fix my speeches.”
Sophomore Shianne Bracey said that to prepare she’ll be going over her speeches.
“The next meet will be the region meet so we’re just writing speeches,” Bracey said.
“I’m going to continue reading my speeches out loud and fix the things that need to be fix.”
Graham said that the experience of an actual meet it is different from practicing for the meet.”
“We have a lot of new members this year so I expect it’ll be harder for them to do congress debate for the first time,” Graham said. “It’s a total different experience to go to an actual meet than what we saw at the workshop.”
Freshman Jocelyn Tedrow said she thinks her first year will be challenging.
“I expect to go up against people who are experienced so it’s going to be difficult since this will be my first year,” Tedrow said.
“I’m going to practice a lot and hopefully do well.”
Hibbs said she is nervous about going to the regional meet.
“Being a new member, I’m really nervous to see what I and the other students will do,” Hibbs said. “I’m considering the fact that none of us are experienced except one member.”
Guidance counselor Leslie Graham said that because Congress debate is a newer UIL competition, she has had to learn a lot herself to be able to prepare the students to compete.
“To be able to help participants prepare I’ve personally had to learn a lot myself by communicating with others schools and getting advice from them,” Graham said. “The workshops we attend let the students experience a somewhat real competition so it is a really big help when it comes to preparing them.
