D

WELCOME,

 

Speech and debate gives students an edge:

• Speech and debate students have a significant edge in college admissions.

• Underperforming students in urban schools show dramatic improvements through participation in speech and debate competitions.

• Speech and debate participation provides real cognitive and behavioral outcomes in the following areas:

  • Improving reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills

  • Improving critical thinking skills

  • Fostering intellectual curiosity

  • Increasing motivation

  • Increasing engagement – both at-risk and gifted students engage more and act out as much as 50% less

 

Speech and debate creates enduring transformation in teens, setting them on a path that can lead them in amazing new directions.

 

Consider the people who got their start as student members of the National Forensic League: Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito; media visionaries Oprah Winfrey and Ted Turner; actors Brad Pitt and Renee Zellweger; TV personalities Stephen Colbert and Tom Lennon; and Senators Richard Lugar, Russ Feingold, and William Frist.

 

Speech & Debate and the Common Core

The skills cultivated through speech and debate events are the very same skills teachers seek to develop in their students, as outlined by the curricular standards that have been adopted by a variety of professional organizations.