Members from the Ladue Speech and Debate team, the Talking Rams, will be competing at two district-level tournaments in March. 

On March 7-8 students will compete in the Missouri High School Activities Association’s (MHSAA’s) district tournament, which qualifies to state-level competition. On the following weekend, students will compete at the National Speech and Debate Association’s (NSDA’s) district tournament, which qualifies to the national tournament. There are a variety of different events that individuals can compete in.

“I do Dramatic Interpretation, and I’m also doing Prose,” Emery Mao (9) said. “[Dramatic Interpretation] is a 10 minute performance of a monologue that you find online, and you act it out… Prose is seven minutes, and you read off of a binder.”

There are a variety of ways that students prepare to compete. For speech events, it often involves giving practice speeches and going over material.

“I’m prepping for districts by memorizing and practicing my Dramatic Interpretation and my Prose,” Mao said. “Running it through and recording myself, and going over the hard spots to see what [needs] improvement, how to be more emotional, what parts I need to re-memorize and re-script.”

Students are also preparing for their debate events. There are three different types of debate, and different students at Ladue compete in each type.

“For [NSDA] districts I’m doing Policy Debate,“ Ashvik Chilakala (10) said. “Policy Debate is one hour and 30 minutes long, two versus two. The affirmative puts [forward] a plan, and the negation says that plan is bad.”

One of the district tournaments has already occurred. Congressional Debate, a speech event, gets its own tournament–which occurred on March 1. Results will be announced at the larger NSDA district tournament on March 13-15.

“Congressional Debate is basically like [a] mock trial, but you’re doing mock Congress,” Chilakala said. “Everyone there is like a house representative. There’s also a presiding officer, who leads the chamber.