Three speakers from the upper school speech and debate team competed in the California High School Speech Association State Championship tournament at Mission College in Santa Clara, California, from April 16-18.

Students Nikhil Dharmaraj (9), Sana Aladin (11) and Divya Rajasekharan (11) qualified for the tournament by placing in the top nine for their events at the Coast Forensic League State Quals Individual Events tournament. At the state qualifiers, Nikhil placed third out of 41 participants, while Sana and Divya, who competed together, placed fourth out of 27 duos.

“It’s very difficult to qualify for the state tournament because our region is very competitive, so for our students to qualify is a very big deal,” upper school speech coach Greg Achten said.

Nikhil participated in Oratorical Interpretation (OI), an event in which a participant must memorize and deliver 10 minutes of a publicly given speech of their choice. He chose to present the speech “Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career,” which was originally given as a TED Talk by writer Larry Smith.

“My OI this year is about finding our passions and how we so often create excuses to get out of pursuing them,” Nikhil said. “I’ve always been a strong believer that everyone needs to find their passion to succeed. This speech called to me, as I was excited by the prospect of motivating people to get up and actually start looking for their passions.”

Sana and Divya participated in Duo Interpretation, which involves memorizing and performing a 10-minute scene from a work of literature.The two chose to perform a scene from “The Accused”, a 1988 film that tells the story of a woman who is gang-raped and decides to prosecute her rapists in court. Sana portrays the woman in the piece, while Divya portrays her lawyer.

“[The Accused] is a critically acclaimed movie with two powerful female characters about a topic that’s super important,” Sana said. “We think that speech is a great platform for talking about things that are important to us, so this is something that means a lot to us.”

The speakers have been preparing for the tournament since the beginning of the year and continue to polish their pieces and improve their delivery for future tournaments.

“I think if you really love the piece that you’re doing and the social message and the cause, you will inherently be more invested in the acting and the production of it,” Divya said. “That passion really comes through when you perform, and that’s what really helped us secure our position at the tournament.”

All three speakers have qualified for the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions (NIETOC).

In order to qualify, speakers must have either received two bids from certain tournaments or submitted an at-large application listing the awards they have won this year. Sana and Divya received two bids, while Nikhil submitted an at-large application and was accepted. Nikhil also qualified for the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Championships by placing first in OI at the district tournament. All speakers who place in the top three in their events can attend the national championships.

The NIETOC will be held in Denver from May 13-15, while the NSDA National Championships will be in Salt Lake City from June 12-17.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on May 4, 2016.