Speech & Debate Moms

[OnMyOwn]

My dd started participating in speech this year and loves it. Next year, I'm sure she will continue and is thinking of adding debate as well. Do you give any high school credit for this or just treat it as an elective? What do the schools do?

[LisaKinVA]

You can do either, or both.

 

In college, I received elective credit for the course.

In high school, one school offered a course in speech and debate, which received credit And had a team, which met after school. Another school only had the extra curricular.

If going the elective credit route, make sure to track the time.

[BlsdMama]

We do Mock Trial, so it's not Debate, but yes, we absolutely are giving credit for it.  It is hours and hours of preparation so absolutely.

[JeanM]

My ds is homeschooled, but takes some classes at the public high school. He participates on their debate team, and the school considers it an extra-curricular, so we're listing it that way too. It is definitely a big time commitment, but definitely worth it.

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

S/D was part of our English grade. In fact, most graded assignments were S/D assignments.

[MomsintheGarden]

S/D was part of our English grade. In fact, most graded assignments were S/D assignments.

 

We did something similar to what Pam did.  We listed S/D as an extracurricular on college apps for Ds17, but the platform speeches he wrote were included in his English "class" which I made, and listed in my course descriptions.  Platform speeches in our league include persuasive, original oratory (informative), expository (informative with slides or props), and motivational.

 

For instance, his "English 10" course description included "...research skills, expository and

persuasive writing, interpretive speech writing..."  He did other things for English in 10th grade, including prep for the AP English Lit exam, but the persuasive speech was a big part of his writing for the year.  He rewrote that thing after every tournament.

 

For those of you who are sitting on the fence about S/D, it is VERY valuable.  We have four local speech tournaments this year (within an hour an a half of where we live).  At each tournament the student gives his/her speech at least three times for three different judges.  The judges fill out a feedback form for the student, so the student gets feedback from nine different people.  Plus, our students are in a club where they get to practice every week, with feedback from parents who know them.  It is a challenging but worthwhile experience.  Right now Ds16 is working on an original oratory speech.  He's rewritten it after the first tournament, making a to-do list from his feedback.  He's improved his logic and research, and is learning a lot!

[MomsintheGarden]

dp

Edited January 7, 2016 by MomsintheGarden

[MomsintheGarden]

tp - server weirdness

Edited January 7, 2016 by MomsintheGarden

[cave canem]

Here is what we did for my two NCFCA students:  

 

First student started in a year-long debate coop and speech coop encompassing class meetings and sanctioned competition.  I thought of awarding a half credit for each of these, but when I wrote up the actual work done, I saw that they really were each worth a credit. They appeared on the transcript in the English section. Student also took a full conventional English class that year.  Speech/debate participation (regional ironman, multi-year nationals qualifier, nats sweepstakes placer) in subsequent years still included the coop meetings but was an off-transcript extracurricular.

 

Second student did a year of debate coop class with some competition.  This will be ninth grade English on transcript.  Student is not pursuing debate further.