SpeechWire Tournament Services - Forensics Tournament Software

You are invited to enter your students in the 2020 Wisconsin Online State Tournament.

This tournament is unique – all the speech and interp events will be pre-loaded recorded performances. Only categories with solo performers will be allowed to enter. (Thus, we will not offer Duo Interp, Group Interp, Play Acting. Additionally, Demonstration will not be allowed an assistant) Student Congress will be a live – online event utilizing Zoom conferencing.

Eligibility – ALL Wisconsin high school forensic programs are invited to participate in this tournament, regardless of the school’s affiliation with any forensic associations

Entries – Each school will be allowed 25 entries with no more than four entries in any category. (for Student Congress, each school is allowed up to 16 entries – in addition to their 25 entries in speech and interp events) Students are not permitted to double enter categories.

Categories – All SOLO WFCA sanctioned categories and category rules will be used. (we will NOT be including Duo Interp, Group Interp and Play Acting or partners/assistants in Demonstration)

Format – The State Tournament shall consist of three preliminary rounds, a semi-final round, and a final round for each category.

Fees – An entry fee of $10 per individual entry and $10 per congress contestant shall be charged.

Judges – All schools participating must provide 1 judge for every 5 entries (or fraction thereof) who are capable of completing online balloting. There will be a full tutorial sent to all judges entered, which will require an active response for them to be fully registered. For Student Congress – each team attending must provide 1 judge for 1-6 entries, 2 for 7-11, and 3 for 12-16 entries.

Awards – Awards will be awarded to all the finalists, and semi-finalists. Sweepstakes trophies will be awarded to the top six Division 1, 2 and 3 schools based on State of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) school enrollment for that school year. (For those unfamiliar with this process, all schools entered in the tournament are evenly separated into three divisions via DPI enrollment for team awards.)

Round 1 Monday, May 11 – 4:00 pm – links to ballots will be emailed to judges

Round 2 Tuesday, May 12 – 4:00 pm – links to ballots will be emailed to judges

Round 3 Wednesday, May 13 – 4:00 pm – links to ballots will be emailed to judges

Semi-Finals Thursday, May 14 – 5:00 pm – Semi Final advancements and links to ballots blasted out

Finals Friday, May 15 – 5:00 pm – Final advancements and links to ballots blasted out

(Specific details regarding the Live broadcast of the Awards will be included in Confirmation materials)

State Tournament T-Shirts & other memorabilia – will be available to order via the WFCA Website. Items ordered prior to the online tournament will be shipped with any awards from the tournament after the tournament has concluded. To order merchandise = https://new.wfcaforensics.org

Confirmation – A confirmation communication will be sent out to all registered teams on Friday, May 8. That confirmation will include information that your judge(s) are set for online judging, your entries that are registered with functional links to their performance

I am going to attempt to delineate the entire process and event as thorough and concise as possible.

How do I register? - After you read this, you can go to Speechwire and find the WFCA Online State Tournament and register just like you would with any normal Tournament. Then after you have entered your students names you will need to return to the tournament home page. The next step would be to then click on the (VIDEO LINKS) to enter each student’s URL link to their performance. (This will also be the spot to enter the Congress student’s email.)

What about this recording of my students? – Your students have the capacity to record themselves with their cellphone, tablet or laptop. If they don’t have one, I am sure that either there is one in their home or they would be able to use on from a friend, mentor or coach. ABSOLUTELY NO EDITING WILL BE ALLOWED!! If it is found that a recording was edited, that entry will be disqualified.

The student or coach will then upload the recording to Youtube. (this will require a Youtube account, it can be either a students personal account or a team/school account.) Then the link from that recording will need to be entered into Speechwire. A student may record themselves one time or thousands of times, but it is up to the individual and coach as to which recording will serve as their State performance. Judges will be instructed to not consider the video/sound quality in their evaluations, but I would certainly suggest that there are several attempts to self-evaluate for best visual and audio selection. I would also suggest wearing what they usually compete in as far as clothing. Finally, I would suggest recording with a background that is not too busy for distraction purposes. Remember, this is not a video/media recording competition – it is a speech competition.

Here is a helpful step by step guide to uploading videos to Youtube (it was created by John Rademacher of Madison West) Please do not wait until the last minute to upload videos, as most home internet service can take up to three hours to upload a ten minute video (depending on your internet service). Also remember that your students can upload the video and just provide you with the link to enter into Speechwire. Upload State Tournament Videos to Youtube

What about limited prep categories? – the limited prep categories of Extemp, Radio and Impromptu will provide only one speech (like a vast majority of the rest of the categories.) Those categories will need to be registered by Monday, May 4^th at 5:00 pm. Then at 6 pm on that Monday, the coaches of students in those categories will receive from the tournament director the material for their category. (a packet for Radio, a set of questions for Extemp, a set of prompts for Impromptu) The coach will be on their honor to provide the materials to their student(s), which the student will then make a recording of their performance. Then, that link will need to be entered into Speechwire by the closing of registration on Tuesday, May 5 by 5:00 pm. Radio and Extemp should not record their prep time, Impromptu should record the entirety of their 5 minutes. Again, we are asking coaches to be on their honor to have the student use only the required time of prep before they record. That application will be up to each coach to work out with their students.

What about Storytelling and Oral Interp of Literature? – These two categories will be unique from the rest of the categories. Oral Interp will record and submit a link for both of their selections (prose and poetry.) Storytelling will submit five links. The first four will be the stories they have prepared for each of the scenarios, and the fifth will be the story that they would like to use in Finals, should they advance. When a coach goes to (VIDEO LINKS) they will see two fields for Oral Interp and five fields for Storytelling.

What about the judges that I need to supply? – The judges need to be entered with their email address into Speechwire by the time registration is due. One day after registration closes, judges will be emailed a tutorial and test-round which they will have until Friday, May 8th 5:00 pm to watch and respond accordingly. We believe the process of online judging will be functional for even the most modest of tech savoy individuals. If judges do not complete this test round, they will not be scheduled into the tournament, a replacement will be used and the school which provided that judge will be charged for the hiring of a tournament-hire judge.

Will students be able to watch the rounds? – Yes. However, students will need to sign up for schedule blasts from Speechwire, and then they will be able to watch the round, and only the round which they are scheduled in while the round is available to the judge of that round. Once the round is closed, the links of the competitors will no longer be available. In other words – Round 1 will be available from the evening of Monday May 11 until the afternoon of Tuesday May 12, as indicated in the schedule (The rest will follow the same). All Students need to do to subscribe is go to: www.speechwire.com/subscribe and click "Subscribe" for the tournament, then follow the instructions. Judges are prompted to subscribe to texts when they arrive at their first round, but they can also subscribe earlier.

If there are additional question please feel free to contact me at WFCAtournament@yahoo.com or (920) 517-7676

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