Hello Fellow Ragers!

 

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Speech and Debate Team is pleased to invite you to the Second Annual “Rage on the Bayou” High School Tournament on November 13 & 14. This will be both virtual and synchronous! We want to help the community reconnect through live performances and offer the opportunity for social interaction. We will run the registration, tabulation, and ballots via Speechwire, and the video streaming for check-in, competition, hanging out, and awards will be done on Yaatly. Coaches, you will need to register your teams, judges, and students on both of these platforms with their individual emails. With support from the Department of Communication, we are pleased to offer the opportunity to get feedback from college professors, graduate students, collegiate competitors, and undergraduate students specifically taught and trained to give constructive criticism in the argumentative performing arts. In addition, we also want to make our faculty members, coaches, and team members available to answer any questions you or your students may have about college life or collegiate competitions. Additionally, with all of the hurricanes and pandemic struggles, all entries for Louisiana schools are free--we only ask that you provide us with your top 4 (or more!) judges for each round  so that we can offer the very best feedback possible.

 

Registration and Events

 

Schools may register for our tournament via Speechwire by 4:00 PM on Wednesday, November 11. Because synchronous, virtual competition can be complicated for both judges and competitors, and we want to offer the best possible experience we believe we can, we will once again only host Individual Events, including the following:  Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation, Oral Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, and Duet Acting, Original Oratory, Declamation, Impromptu Speaking, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Informative Speaking. We plan to offer both Senior and Junior Divisions in most events, except Original Oratory and Declamation, and we anticipate collapsing POI and Informative. We will follow the Louisiana High School Speech League’s rules and guidelines for all of the events, except for Impromptu Speaking. With Impromptu Speaking, we will follow the collegiate style of presenting each section per round with a set of 2 unique quotations upon one of which each student may choose to speak. Guidelines for judges’ facilitation of these rounds, and the basic instructions we will give to all of our judges for all events, will be included in a “Judging Tip Sheet” available in Speechwire. 

 

 

General Information

 

Yaatly Invitation Link

Please note in the schedule that we will have a period of time on Friday, 2:30 - 4:00 PM, for students, judges, and whomever to checkout Yaatly. We’ll have pretend rounds up in which anyone can see what any of the round roles look like. And, the “Auditorium” will be open. We hope to make the Auditorium a social environment throughout the tournament, and we will have a Judges’ Lounge plus Tab/Help Room for the big kids.

 

Extemp and Impromptu Procedures

While students will perform in Yaatly, as with the other events, students will get their questions and prompts through Speechwire. Thus, students in these events will need to be signed into both platforms for their rounds. In both events, students will report to the Yaatly Draw Room at the beginning of each round, and they’ll get their instructions from there. Extemp will operate in a pretty normal fashion with the person running Extemp releasing questions to students at intervals. For Impromptu specifically, the judges will be responsible for releasing the Impromptu prompts in Speechwire. Students in Impromptu and Extemp will remain in the Draw Room until the preceding competitor lets them know it’s their turn, so students will speak in the competition room, return to the Draw Room for the next competitor, and then return to the competition room to watch or go to their next event.  We will have video explanations available in Speechwire for everyone!

 

Judge Ethics

Judges should act professionally and demonstrate respect for academic freedom when engaged in the critique, ranking and rating of students. The American Forensics Association is a community based on inclusion and therefore judges shall not include on ballots any comments which alienates, marginalizes, attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

-Taken from the AFA-NIET By-Laws

Additionally, judges should understand that student competitors are coming from various socioeconomic backgrounds and their access to technology and stable internet shouldn’t impact their rankings. If issues arise, we will do what we can to solve them. Please, be understanding and supportive.

 

Awards

All semifinalists and finalists will receive an award. We will also award the top 5 teams, top 5 Senior Division competitors, and the top 5 Junior Division competitors. Students must be entered in at least 4 events to qualify for Individual Sweepstakes. Like most things, tiebreakers in outrounds will follow the LHSSL’s  system.

 

 

Geaux Cajuns!

 

Charles Stowers Womelsdorf, Jr., PhD.

Director of Forensics

Department of Communication

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

womelsdorf@louisiana.edu 

 

(vr)