Envisioning a New Standard for Speech, Debate, and Communication Education Presenter: David A. Yastremski Ridge High School, New Jersey Over the past several decades, many organizations have created standards dealing with speaking, argumentation, listening, and media literacy. For educators, such standards provide direction toward helping students, of all ages, develop their voice and confidence as communicators. On a policy level, such standards help states and school systems recognize the communication discipline as a significant, relevant, and purposeful course of study, worthy of its own identity in licensure, state/school requirements, and overall contribution to the whole child. Along with members of the National Communication Association, the International Listening Association, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education, the current standards will be reviewed, in order to consider how they currently function in our K-12 classrooms in order to raise the question whether bridging the organizations can foster and promote a new vision of communication education.
Grace in the Lion’s Den: A Technology Empowered Confrontation of Racism Presenters: Andy Charrier, Dr. Becky Bauer, Marilyn Buchvold Global Academy, Minnesota
Grace in The Lion’s Den empowers students to use technology to deconstruct racism. This project is inspired by Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin who asks, “How do we make our schools laboratories of democratic institutions for social change? Where we experiment with technologies of love, reciprocity, and justice?” Apps create
a multimodal learning experience that responds to what Harvard researcher Matthew Desmond calls “five fallacies of racism.” Students express themselves through photography, academic conversation, poetry, and public speaking.
Holding a Debate Day at Your School Presenter: Jeffrey Miller
many personal and pragmatic walks of life. Joe and Pam believe in the power of the spoken word—the power of words and honest emotions and discernible truths— and how “Interp” and “character building” are valuable building blocks to create some real latitude in the Communication Process of Speaker, Message, Listener, and Feedback. This session will be from one teacher to another; it will focus on offering a differentiated learning style that just might turn the light bulb on for some kids.
Marist School, Georgia Challenged to create a day that centered around teaching students to learn how to “agree to disagree,” I created an Informed Discourse Day for the upperclass students at my school. The day focused around social justice and challenged all students to engage in discussions, dialogue, and debate. After completing this successful day, I realized that this is something that could be modeled at any school across the country. The day not only had non-debaters learn about social justice and engage in a topic they wouldn’t in their core classes, but it also offered the student body a spotlight on the members of our speech and debate team.
Interp: Bringing Characters to Life Presenters: Joe and Pam Wycoff Apple Valley High School, Minnesota This session will address the basics of oral interpretation, not only as they apply to competition, but also how they apply to the inner workings of effective interpersonal (even intrapersonal) communication. Bringing characters to life means that we bring meaningful communication to life—and with that comes an understanding of the power and potential of both verbal and non-verbal communication. Understanding Interp skills and creating believable characters transcends the competitive realm. One becomes more than a good performer: each person becomes a master storyteller, a teacher of didactic messages that are creative, relevant, and transferable to
Investigating and Addressing Gender Differences in Debate Presenter: Shuntá Jordan Pace Academy, Georgia In this interactive session, participants will investigate gender differences in speech and debate. By understanding the issues faced by students in the classroom and debate spaces, participants will reflect on how actions and inaction foster and perpetuate beliefs of gender inequality and in response, come up with solutions to better serve all districts.
Riding the Zombie Wave: Apocalyptic Strategies for Advancing Argumentation Skills Across the Curriculum Presenters: Kevin Minch, Jared Young, Tyler Unsell Truman State University and Park Hill High School, Missouri The panelists will explore three aspects of the Zombie Scholars Academy curriculum that can be deployed in teachers’ own classrooms. The session will begin with a brief orientation to the approach of zombies as a metaphor. The bulk of the session will be devoted to the discussion of specific strategies including: (1) The Zombie Apocalypse Survival Debate; (2) The Bug-Out Bag Survival Supply Discussion; and (3) Disaster Preparedness Public Service Announcement Argumentation. Copies of lesson plans derived from the programming will be shared.
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