Excellent Grant Proposal Resources

For those of you out there looking for alternative funding sources and considering grant writing, I can attest from personal experience how difficult it can be.  A good grant proposal often seemed like obscenity to me - no one could define it, but they knew it when they saw it.  But, this post over at educatednation provides some excellent links to make the process a little more transparent.  Great reading material for the winter break if you are planning some proposals for the spring!

Get your students judging!

I am a staunch believer in the power of judging as an educational tool!  This weekend CSU Chico will be holding its Rookie Tournament and everyone on the team is required to judge.  In addition, I strongly encourage my students to judge high school speech and debate competitions whenever possible.  The p0wer of perspective can truly take a comeptitor from an “okay” speaker/debater to an “outstanding” speaker/debater.  They begin to see what its like to sit in the back of the room and have to try to decipher what is being argued and against which arguments.  They begin to see what type of argument sounds more persuasive than others.  They begin to see what works in cross examination, and what fails miserably.  And they finally begin to see the WHOLE debate, instead of just their side of it.   In individual events, competitors begin to see what a difference a well-placed gesture makes, how a speech with organization and transitions can truly stand out, and how much the judge sees from the time you walk in a room to the time you leave.  In my experience, it has been a truly eye-opening experience for all competitors. 

I remember when I was debating, the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo tournament had “peer-judging” in elimination rounds.  Each outround panel was comprised of two regular judges and a student who had been eliminated in the previous round.  I remember having to judge that first elim round and how much I learned from those two teams.  I wish that more tournaments would consider doing this.  I think its a great experience for debaters to be able to use some of their knowledge and to see debate from a whole different perspective.  I’m not sure how useful it would be for IEs, but with debate, so much of what you need to do to be successful is encapsulated in those outrounds that it can really make a difference.  And somehow, judging is much different than just watching and flowing. 

In addition to the benefit that your students can gain from these experiences, there are numerous high school students out there who work hard to produce well-written speeches and well-researched debate arguments, only to find a distracted, if not totally disinterested, person in the back of the room on competition day.  These students would love to have college competitors who have experience and insight in the back of the room.  And it provides a great opportunity for mentoring and recruiting. 

I strongly encourage you to check online for your local league activities (and larger invitational tournaments).  You can find contact information for National Forensic League local districts here.  Although some local districts are friendlier to college competitors than others, it is worth checking out!

Happy Black Friday…

I hope you are all enjoying a weekend that is both tournament and conference-free (for those who just returned from NCA).  I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving weekend and a good return to reality next week. 

Research on forensics - a little inspiration

A few days ago, I posted an article from the National Forensic Journal on how to effectively do research on forensics.  Although the article was from 1990, I thought much of it was still valuable information.  Another article in that same issue of the Journal also has some valuable insights into doing research on forensics, so I thought I would include it here as well.  Written by The Head Jayhawk, Donn Parson, this article updates information that came out of a conference from the 1970s, “The Sedalia Conference”.  The article, “On publishing and perishing: Some approaches in forensic research,” does an excellent job of recognizing and identifying what Parson refers to as, “non-traditional circumstances” that are experienced by forensic coaches and adminstrators (and often not at all understood by academic peers).  The next time someone says, “I just don’t get what you do,” it might be good to excerpt this article.

The other thing I liked about the article is that it is written by someone in charge of a very respected graduate studies program in Communication (University of Kansas) and very clearly identifies the benefits and importance of debate in both the careers of undergraduates and graduates.  If nothing else, perhaps this article can serve as an inspiration to someone who is teetering on the edge of a debate position in graduate school or a debate career in academia.  I will certainly be putting it in my files under “inspiration” to remind me why I do the things I do and what makes it worthwhile!

BBC Middle East Debates

Although this series of Middle East Debates from the BBC is a little old, it has some great material for background on the Israel/Palestine issue as well as other areas of Middle East foreign policy.  I always like to have multi-media information in my argumentation and debate class, but I also realize that students may be able to download these on to their mp3s and listen to them on their way to school, while exercising, etc.  And just having some additional background information can make the difference between a win and a loss in some rounds. 

Shout out - SocalLD.net NFA LD blog

I think I mentioned this blog a while back, but in June of this year Danny Cantrell of Cerritos College set up a blog dedicated to NFA-LD.  This is a great resource for those just getting started in NFA LD, but also has many a fruitful discussion for team policy debaters and parliamentary debaters.  Currently, there is a discussion happening on critiques in NFA-LD and how they should be dealt with.  Those of you with policy backgrounds should get involved in the conversation!  There are entries dealing with evidence (some even including actual evidence), instructional advice and resources, and tournament information. 

I’ve put the blog on my RSS feed so I’ll be getting more involved in the conversations over there.  PSCFA has voted to try NFA-LD this year at our Spring Champs and I’m looking forward to getting more acquainted with the event!  So, check it out!

Request for help…memorization

This is a post requesting information rather than giving it.  I have a student this semester who has some speaking talent, but has a really, really tough time memorizing his speeches.  I am wondering what strategies all of you experts out there can offer on this skill.  I never had a problem memorizing speeches, so I never really used a “strategy” - reading it over for the 1000 times that I had to made it stick for me.  But, with him, it just doesn’t stick.  So, any suggestions in the comments section would be MUCH appreciated!

Staying motivated without tournaments…

This time of year is sometimes difficult, with weeks before the next tournament, finals approaching and holidays on the horizon. Often students lose focus and research and practice become non-existent. So, how is one to keep the motivation going? I think a couple of things can help:

1) Have some incentives in place. During the time when tournaments happen often, they offer their own competitive incentives, but during this time, you may have a card cutting contest or an impromptu speech practice contest (who can give the most impromptu practice speeches in the next month) or a work day with pizza or desserts. Try to schedule these things intermittently during the time off from tournaments.

2) Set goals RIGHT NOW for next semester. Don’t wait until the next semester starts. Have your students set some goals now and then translate those into things they can do NOW to meet those goals.

3) Schedule practice debates/speech times and run them with multiple judges to give the most possible feedback. You might use this time to do some start/stop debates and speeches. Where you stop the student and make them start over until the speech is near-perfect. This is a frustrating process and can be a slight blow to self-esteem (I remember crying during my first start/stop round - out of total frustration), so it isn’t good to do when a tournament is approaching, but with weeks to recover, this can be a great time to really hone specific areas of speeches that need it.

4) Schedule a speech night. This is especially good for forcing IEers into staying “warm” with their speeches. And its a great way to get the word out on campus about your team. Send out invitations to the big wigs on campus and do a campus-wide announcement and some flyers and have a sprinkling of events, providing variety. The debaters can do a short demo debate as well, but it won’t be as “real” as the IEer experience.

5) Schedule some intersquad debates/speech rounds with other schools in the area. If you have programs in the area, you can spend an afternoon/evening running through a debate or a round of speeches and give everyone some feedback, while developing some relationships that may not otherwise get developed.

These are just a few ideas. I’m sure there are many others. If anyone out there has some they would like to add, please put them in the comments area!

Forensics Research - What NOT to do (and some things you should do)

Research is important.  It is important to our activities, it is important to our professional positions and it is particularly important to our graduate students.  Many students who devote a significant amount of time to this activity look to include the activity in their graduate research projects.  After all, it offers them an easy audience from whom to collect data, it is something that interests them and sometimes they even see some value to others in having answers to the questions that have been rattling around in their heads.  I definitely think research on our activity is important.  Many of us make assumptions about what “we know to be true” without having any real data to back those assumptions up.  In my argument class, as well as the debates I judge most weekends, this would not pass muster.  So, we need studies to be done.  But, I think its important that we consider those studies and make sure that academic research within our area are just as (or even more) legitimate as that being done in other areas.  I came across this (somewhat old) article and thought it might be useful in guiding research for both graduate students and professionals in debate. 

The four areas for focusing research:  (1) real world application, (2) argumentation theory, (3) forensics pedagogy, and (4) tournament practice.  It seems to me that many edebate discussions are rife with information to spur some research in these areas.  Using the archives, perhaps one can find something that interests them and use it as a jumping off point to create a study and complete that study in such a way that it has real world and meaningful application theory, pedagogy and/or practice.

Online Resource - PBS Point of View series

I am searching for interesting material to use in my Argumentation and Debate class next semester and came across the PBS website for their Point of View series.  I’ve used Frontline material in my classes before and thought it was great, but I haven’t used any of the POV stuff.  But, it seems perfect for both debate classes and parliamentary debate teams for background information on a bevy of issues.  The topics seem what would be interesting to students and PBS supplies suggestions for using the materials in classes.  They even refer to using the forensics coach on campus to access “ballots” for evaluating in-class debates.  There are a number of shows on varying subject matter, both domestic and international.