With over 20 new members, the McLean debate team looks forward to an engaging start to the debate season. In the coming weeks, the team will head to various local tournaments to compete against several other high schools, including Langley and Marshall High School. For their first tournament, Public Forum debaters will head to Woodbridge Senior High School on Oct. 26 for WACFL 1. WACFL stands for the Washington-Arlington Catholic Forensic League, a speech and debate league that is centered around the greater D.C. area.
“We consistently place in the top ten for these local competitions.” said junior Michael Jiang, social media manager. “That being said, [these tournaments] are not really about competitiveness, it’s more about gaining experience.”
In preparation for the tournament, team captains have lectured new members on the structure of Public Forum, teaching them the basics: how to appeal to a judge, research and analyze their topics along with writing compelling arguments.
“It is their first tournament but with these weekly lesson plans, we’ve been teaching them how to debate so people can be more prepared,” Jiang said. “Debate is a really research intensive extracurricular, so people have to research their own arguments, but we set up the foundation for them to be ready.”
Additionally, they also helped them write block files which are anticipatory counterarguments for their opponents’ arguments. Last Wednesday, the team focused specifically on crafting effective rebuttals to practice tearing down their opponent’s main arguments.
“You need rebuttals to make your opponent’s arguments look bad so that the judge sides with you,” freshman Shaheen Tahir said. “It’s something to downgrade the opponent’s argument.”
These lessons are especially important given the sudden influx of new members.
“Most of our team is majorly composed of freshmen or sophomores who wanted to try debate for the first time,” Jiang said.
At WACFL 1, the team will argue either for or against whether or not the United States federal government should expand its surveillance infrastructure along its southern border. While familiar to many, given its relevance within the upcoming presidential elections in November, others feel the topic is too vague.
“I personally think the current topic, ‘The United States Federal Government Should Expand Surveillance Along its Southern Border’ to be a little bit shallow,” said junior Tobin Wilson, Public Forum team captain. “It seems to approach the topic of immigration policy without getting into the details. [Regardless], the team is well positioned to have a fun first tournament where we all learn a lot.”
