Upper school debate competes at the Stanford National Invitational
Debater Alexander Lam (11) speaks to a room of competitors during one of the rounds on the first day of the tournament. Seven public forum teams and two Congressional debaters placed at the Stanford National Invitational, which offered nine speech events and five styles of debates, from Jan. 16 to 18. The tournament featured competitors from 199 schools.
January 27, 2016
The upper school debate team competed at the Stanford National Invitational from Jan. 16 to 18, with seven public forum teams and two Congressional debaters winning awards at the tournament.
Offering nine speech events and five styles of debate, the tournament invited high school speakers and debaters from across the country to participate in one of the most competitive high school tournaments of the competition circuit. The Invitational had competitors from 199 schools and 22 states.
Seniors Sorjo Banerjee and Eesha Chona advanced to the final round of Varsity public forum and were later crowned tournament champions after defeating a team from Nueva.
āI was not expecting to win the tournament at all: Stanford is always known to be unpredictable and extremely difficult,ā Eesha said. āBecause Sorjo and I went to the Blake Tournament in December, which uses the January Public Forum topic, we had already debated at least 10 or more rounds on the topic, and I felt very prepared.ā
Juniors Joyce Huang and Alexander Lam advanced to quarterfinals. Seniors Abhinav Ketineni, Jasmine Liu, David Jin, Aumesh Misra and Suraj Jagadeesh, along with junior Emaad Raghib and freshmen Cindy Wang and Clarissa Wang advanced to double-octofinals. Senior Nikhil Bopardikar and sophomore Jacqueline He advanced to triple-octofinals.
In Varsity public forum, there were six preliminary rounds before breaking to triple-octos, allowing 128 debaters to advance.
For the month of January, the public forum topic is āResolved: On balance, economic sanctions are reducing the threat Russia poses to Western interests.ā The debaters must prepare for both sides of the topic by researching various arguments and anticipating counterpoints.
In the Congressional debates, there were four preliminary rounds before breaking directly to the final round. Congressional debate has various chambers, and each chamber sets their own agenda for what bills they will debate. In each tournament, competitors debate different pieces of legislation from an overall list.
āYou have to be prepared on the array of bills that are coming, which means weāve been doing a lot of research, organization and practice speeches,ā upper school debate coach Sandra Berkowitz said.
Juniors Aditya Dhar and Misha Tseitlin placed second and sixth in Congressional debate, respectively. In addition to the upper school debaters, various middle school participants competed as well.
āI was obviously hoping to do well at the tournament, but my success came as a little unexpected and a little expected too,ā Misha said. āIāve seen the feedback on my ballots and I know what I need to do in terms of evidence and delivery to make it better.ā
The upper school debate team will travel to Emory University to compete at the Barkley Forum for High Schools from Jan. 29 to 31.
This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on JanuaryĀ 27, 2016.Ā