Speech, Debate, & the American Legion Oratorical Contest
Notes & Videos
What the Constitution Means to Me focuses on Heidi’s time participating in the American Legion Oratory Contest (now known as the American Legion Oratorical Contest). This section will focus on that specific contest, as well as traditional Speech & Debate competitions.
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Below are some videos that sum up various competitions, and even include some clips of more recent students making their speeches.
The American Legion Oratorical Contest
According to their websites, “The American Legion Oratorical Contest exists to develop deeper knowledge and appreciation for the U.S. Constitution among high school students. Since 1938, the program has presented participants with an academic speaking challenge that teaches important leadership qualities, the history of our nation’s laws, the ability to think and speak clearly, and an understanding of the duties, responsibilities, rights and privileges of American citizenship. The program has featured numerous politicians and prominent contestants over the years, including former presidential candidate Alan Keyes, national television commentator and talk radio host Lou Dobbs, and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.”
The contest is broken into two sections: the prepared oration, and the assigned topic discourse.
The subject used for the prepared oration must be on some aspect of the U.S. Constitution, with an emphasis on a citizen’s duties and obligations. The same subject and oration used in the department contest must be used in the national contest. The prepared oration must be the original effort of each contestant and be delivered in no fewer than eight minutes and no more than ten minutes.
The assigned topic discourse must not consume less than three minutes or more than five minutes for delivery. The purpose of the assigned topic discourse is to test the speaker's knowledge of the subject, the extent of his or her research, and the ability to discuss the topic as related to the basic principles of government under the Constitution.
The assigned topic shall be drawn by the contest official in full view of the audience immediately before the last speaker begins delivery of his or her prepared oration and will be made known to the audience and each contestant approximately five minutes prior to the time of delivery. The topic will be on some phrase of the U.S. Constitution, selected from Articles and Sections as listed under assigned topics for the current year's contest.
Speech & Debate
There are two parts of speech and debate, as the title suggests.
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Speech Events
Speech involves a presentation by one or two students that is judged against a similar type of presentation by others in a round of competition. There are two general categories of speech events, public address events and interpretive events.
Public address events feature a speech written by the student, either in advance or with limited prep, that can answer a question, share a belief, persuade an audience, or educate the listener on a variety of topics. These events include:
Commentary (EXC)
Declamation (DEC)
Expository (EXP)
Impromptu (IMP)
Informative Speaking (INF)
International Extemporaneous Speaking (IX)
Mixed Extemporaneous Speaking (MX)
Original Oratory (OO)
Original Spoken Word Poetry (SW)
Pro Con Challenge (PCC)
United States Extemporaneous Speaking (USX)
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Interpretation events center upon a student selecting and performing published material and appeal to many who enjoy acting and theatre. These events include:
Dramatic Interpretation (DI)
Duo Interpretation (DUO)
Humorous Interpretation (HI)
Poetry (POE)
Program Oral Interpretation (POI)
Prose (PRO)
Storytelling (STO)
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Debate Events
Debate involves an individual or a team of students working to effectively convince a judge that their side of a resolution or topic is, as a general principle, more valid. Students in debate come to thoroughly understand both sides of an issue, having researched each extensively, and learn to think critically about every argument that could be made on each side. Debate events include:
Big Questions (BQ)
Congressional Debate (House & Senate) (CON)
Extemporaneous Debate (XDB)
Lincoln-Douglas Debate (LD)
Policy Debate (CX)
Public Forum Debate (PF)
World Schools Debate (WS)
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Most speech and debate events are somehow tied back to The National Speech & Debate Association – the NSDA is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization in the United States. They provide competitive speech and debate activities, high-quality resources, comprehensive training, scholarship opportunities, and advanced recognition to more than 140,000 students and coaches ever year.
Parliamentary Debate
Although The National Speech & Debate Association has two debate events that are similar to the Parliamentary Debate style used in the second part of What the Constitution Means to Me (Extemporaneous Debate & World Schools Debate), Parliamentary Debate has its own separate competitions.
The exact breakdown of Parliamentary debate is as follows:
Preparation Period
First Proposition Speaker
First Opposition Speaker:
Second Proposition Speaker
Second Opposition Speaker
Opposition Rebuttal
Proposition Rebuttal
The play notes that a special version of this breakdown is used instead – Proposition, opposition, proposition, opposition, proposition, opposition. Additionally, the full timing of a real competition is not used in the play – in the play, preparation takes ninety seconds, and then each side has two minutes for their initial approach, one minute for their rebuttal, thirty seconds to cross-examine, and then one minute for a final closing statement.