Brentwood Congress and Novice IE Invitational 2023

Brentwood High School Speech and Debate Team

2221 High School Drive, St Louis, MO 63144

Brentwood High School would like to invite you to attend our Congress and Novice Individual Events Tournament at Brentwood High School/Middle School on January 20-21, 2023. We will be using the Forensics Tournament (forensicstournament.net) platform for this tournament. Congress is varsity/novice combined and will take place on Friday with Novice IEs on Saturday. 

We will offer competition in the following events: Original Oratory, Informative Speaking, Humorous Interp, Dramatic Interp, Duo Interp, POI, Domestic Extemp, International Extemp, Student Congress, Radio Speaking, Storytelling, Prose, and Poetry. We will be enforcing a cap of FIVE entries per individual event given room availability. There is NO CAP for Congress. 

Additionally, please see the judging obligations for each school as they are explained below. Please fill out our online judge registration form OR input judges through Forensics Tournament. The link will be found in a document sent out following the Winter Break and will be posted to the Forensics Tournament page for this tournament.

This weekend will also be an opportunity for students to meet with admissions representatives from local colleges and universities who will be invited to set up a booth if they judge a round :)

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. My cell phone number is 417-658-8501. You may send tournament-related emails to me at jwallis@brentwoodmoschools.org. Either method of communication works well, and I will do my best to return messages within 24-48 hours. 

Entries shall be accepted until Tuesday, January 17, 2022. We would appreciate your confirmed entry no later than Wednesday, January 18, 2022 at NOON - drops after this time forfeit the entry fee. Drops on the day of the tournament will result in a fee of $10 per dropped entry. 

Finally, we are so excited to be part of this amazing community of speech and debate in the St. Louis region and want to thank you all for your continued support. We look forward to welcoming you for a weekend of exciting competition!

Thank you, 

John Wallis

Head Coach

Safety Rules

1. For areas where your teams will spend down time, we will assign you a part of the school to make sure that people are spread out and that social distancing can be enforced.

2. Masks are not required, but we ask that they be on hand in the case of a judge or competitor requesting that one be worn.

3. Stay safe and healthy! If you are not feeling well, please stay home!

 EVENTS OFFERED

Each school may enter up to but no more than FIVE students in each IE division. There is NO CAP for Congress entries.

 Charge is $10/entry. 

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

Friday, January 21, 2022

3:15-3:45PM Registration 

4:00PM Session 1 of Congress

6:00PM Session 2 of Congress 

8:00PM Supersession of Congress

Saturday, January 22, 2022

8:30AM-9:30AM Registration

9:30AM EXTEMP DRAW

9:45AM IE Round 1

10:00AM EXTEMP Round 1

11:30-12:30 LUNCH BREAK

12:30 PM  EXTEMP DRAW

12:45PM IE Round 2

1:00PM EXTEMP Round 2

2:30PM EXTEMP DRAW

2:45PM IE Round 3

3:00PM EXTEMP Round 3

4:45PM AWARDS

DEADLINES

Judging Requirements and Expectations 

Schools will be obligated to provide rounds for judging based on entry totals. Schools are encouraged to utilize varsities to meet expectations if necessary. Since this is our 1st tournament, we are opening this up to five entries per event, and we are a small school, we are asking you to help provide a few more judges than other, larger tournaments. Judge obligations are:

● 1 judge for every 8 event entries 

Judge Expectations: 

● All judging assignments will be posted in Forensics Tournament. Accounts will be connected by the host. 

● Please sign up knowing you should arrive in your room 15 minutes prior to start time. Any rounds you sign up to judge will likely be assigned to you. Do not sign up for a time you cannot make. 

● All judge comments should focus on the competitor’s performance in the round - not on their clothing, competition space, etc.

Awards & Sweepstakes Rules

An in person ceremony will be presented. We will recognize the TOP SIX competitors in each event and TOP SIX competitors in individual sweepstakes. In terms of team awards, we will recognize the top 3 teams for sweepstakes. Each school’s BEST THREE ENTRIES in each event/division will be tabulated for sweepstakes awards.

Points in Events will be awarded to the top three entries from each school as follows:

Any Entry……………………………………… one point

Event Semifinals………………………………..five points

Event Finals……………….…………………. ten points

Event Sixth Place………………………….…one point

Event Fifth Place………………………….…two points

Event Fourth Place………………………….…three points

Event Third Place………………………......... four points

Event Second Place………………………….. five points

Event First Place……………………………… six points

Tournament Speech Statement

The Brentwood team affirms the importance of all tournament participants’ cooperation in creating an educational and competitive environment that is fair, humane and responsible while, at the same time, encouraging debates that are devoted to full and robust arguments about a diverse range of ideas. Specifically, this tournament affirms that:

1.  Judges and students are encouraged to talk about the expectations that they have for creating a debate that focuses on ideas instead of personal attacks.

2. Debaters are encouraged to communicate with respect, not attacking each other or the judge.

3.  Judges are encouraged to communicate with respect, not attacking or devaluing students.

4. Debaters and judges are encouraged to reject discourse which devalues other members of our community based on their race, age, ability, gender, class, sexual or religious orientation, or any reason that is not directly related to the arguments that they present.

5. Students and judges are encouraged to communicate with each other when they observe instances of verbally aggressive attacks rather than silently watching something happen before them to which they object.

6. Judges are encouraged to reward courteous and respectful behavior toward the judge and other competitors in awarding speaker points.

7. If serious and/or repeated demeaning speech materially or substantially disrupts the opportunity for speakers to compete fairly or the judge to evaluate fairly, judges are encouraged to dock speaker points accordingly.

Land Acknowledgement Statement

"It is important for us here at Brentwood Speech and Debate, in alignment with our mission to enrich lives and build community through communication, to acknowledge that the land beneath us owes its vitality to generations who have come before us. In the spirit of making erased and silenced histories visible, Brentwood Speech and Debate chooses to learn about, come to terms with, and share the truth of Westward Expansion. Brentwood acknowledges its community spaces rest on the traditional land of Indigenous People that have stewarded and cared for this land for centuries. We acknowledge that we are standing on the ancestral and occupied lands of the Illini Confederacy, Osage Nation and the Myaamia, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, O-ga-xpa Ma-zho (Quapaw), Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), and Missouria tribes. They are the peoples that we pay our respects to. We acknowledge that this land was stolen and acquired through a history of violence. While Brentwood remains on these lands, we will attempt to honor their histories and ask you to join us in uncovering such histories at any and all public in-person and virtual events. We encourage you to learn more about Indigenous communities and land where you live and to honor those who made their homes on this land before us.

How to Register 

1. Coaches will need to login to the website forensicstournament.net. You may need to create an account for yourself and your school. 

2. You will register your team by visiting the tournament website. - https://forensicstournament.net/brentwood/23

1. Log into Forensics Tournament and click the “Registration” tab on the tournament website.

2. For students already listed on your roster, add them to an event by selecting their name and then selecting their event(s). Students can receive email OR text updates for rounds.

3. For students not listed on your roster, add them in your school’s account page.

4. Make sure that students can access their account BEFORE the tournament.

3. You can also input judges into Forensics Tournament. You may use the website OR sign up via the link below. The tournament host will put them in if you use the online form.

4. All balloting will be done with paper ballots.