The end is only the beginning

The third week at the 2006 UNT Mean Green Workshop comes to an official end Saturday as students depart. Over the past week, students have debated numerous practice rounds, refined cases, and improved on all skills from researching to giving the perfect 2AR. With a teacher to student ratio of 2:1, all of the students were constantly working with coaches and former debaters who have worked at the highest level of competition. The past three weeks have been very rewarding and the staff is very confident that all of the debaters will accomplish their goals for next season given the amount of time and dedication that all the students put in over the duration of the Workshop. Good luck next year and we hope to see you again next summer at UNT.

As the third week winds down

Students have stayed busy the past two days meeting three times per day with their labs and participating in numerous practice rounds. In lab, the students continue to do work on rebuttals. Lab leaders have stressed the importance of clearly articulating voters, crystallization, winning the standard, reading evidence against the opponent's case, beating the spread, and issue selection. Students have also written new cases from the research they collected during lab time in the library and computer lab. Time was spent this morning explaining how to properly cut and cite evidence because of the lack of properly cut evidence even at the highest levels of competition. On Wednesday night, students were shown Arnold Schwarzenegger's first movie from 1970, Hercules in New York, as a break from debate for a few hours. Hopefully, the debate skills learned in the third week will stick with the students as long as Hercules' fight with "the wild zoo bear."

Time for refinement

Students have spent the past two days in lab writing blocks, writing new cases, researching, brainstorming arguments, and giving rebuttals. During the third week, labs meet three times per day and work on improving arguments based upon constructive criticism received during practice rounds. Students have been debating "stop/go" practice rounds where extra time is allotted to give students the opportunity to redo speeches during the practice round, so they are given an opportunity to fix their shortcomings immediately after they make them. All of the students have shown tremendous progress in terms of argument variety, depth, and effectively debating standards. They will continue refining their cases, writing new cases, and repeatedly giving rebuttals over the next week.


Complete results from the Workshop tournament that concluded last Friday:

Octos
1. David McGough Greenhill byes to Quarters
8. Rahim Sayani Colleyville def 9. Laura Rau Marcus
13. Patrick Keating ALJ def. 4. Ryan Bennett Southlake Carroll
5. Anthony Godfrey Burleson def. 12 Khurram Ali Colleyville
14. John Monagle ALJ def 3. Akeel Rangwala Plano West
11. Danielle Beaury Flowermound def 6. Marlaina Montoya Ronald Reagan
7. Danielle Smogard Southlake Carroll def. 10 Kevin Martin Mesquite
2. Arti Bhatia Collevyille def. 15 Travis Brown Lake Travis


Quarters
1.David McGough def. 8. Rahim Sayani
5. Anthony Godfrey Burleson def. 13.Patrick Keating
11. Danielle Beaury def. 14. John Monagle
2. Arti Bhatia def. 7. Danielle Smogard


Semis
1. David McGough def. 5. Anthony Godfrey
2. Arti Bhatia def. 11. Danielle Beaury

Finals
1. David McGough def. 2. Arti Bhatia


Top 5 Speakers
1. Anthony Godfrey Burleson
2. David McGough Greenhill
3. Edward Witliff Regan
4. Arti Bhatia Colleyville
5. Jackie Allgayer Cinco Ranch

The Beginning of the Third Week

Although most of the students left the Workshop after a busy two weeks, ten students remain for an additional week and will have the opportunity to take full advantage of the 5 remaining staff: Aaron Timmons, Sam Duby, Neil Conrad, Gary Johnson, and Katherine Thompson. With a 2:1 teacher to student ratio, the third week students will be guaranteed more attention than offered by any other comparable institute. The additional week includes 12 more practice rounds, which would give students attending all three weeks over 23 fully-critiqued practice rounds. On Saturday and Sunday, the students spent time in the library compiling an extensive brief on the healthcare topic, met with their labs, and attended a lecture on formulating standards. On Sunday night, the students were treated to Thai food for a special dinner. Stay tuned for a daily update everyday on the happenings of the third week. We are very excited about the amount of personal attention that all the students will receive over the next week.

The Conclusion

Students showcased the skills they had learned over the past two weeks at the Workshop tournament which concluded this evening with a demonstration debate between Colleyville-Heritage's Arti Bhatia and Greenhill's David McGough. Before the tournament broke to elimination rounds, students attended electives and had one final preliminary round, which guaranteed every student at least ELEVEN fully critiqued practice rounds with many students getting more than thirteen practice rounds because of extra time spent in lab debating. The 2006 Mean Green LD Workshop has been an extremely rewarding experience for both the students and staff and we encourage all of you to consider joining us again next summer at the University of North Texas.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the next week about the happenings of those students staying for the third week. And check out the pictures link on the right sidebar for pictures from the Workshop tournament.

Only one more day

The morning began with an elective where students chose between five different options. Then the Article Groups met for the final time and discussed Rawls' Theory of Justice, which sparked many debates on what people are due. The fun part of the day was when many of the labs had lunch together or got coffee at one of the superb pizza places immediately adjacent to campus. After lunch, it was back to debating two more rounds to bring the total to TEN so far. The night concluded with a demonstration debate between Katherine Thompson and Shane O'Neal on the Eminent Domain topic where Katherine ran a "performance" to give the students an idea how to run and handle unique case positions. Tomorrow's schedule consists of electives and one more preliminary round before the Workshop tournament clears to elimination rounds tomorrow afternoon.

Some Friendly Competition

The Workshop tournament, consisting of five preliminary rounds, began this afternoon with the first two rounds occurring after students met with their labs and did rebuttal redos and blocked-out common case positions. Six practice rounds preceded the Workshop tournament with the last of the six rounds taking place this morning. All of the students were very ready to engage in a little healthy competition with the other students they have become friends with over the past ten days. Article Groups also met this morning with the last of eight Article Groups meeting tomorrow morning. The students will be spending the rest of the night working on revisions for the third and fourth rounds being held tomorrow.