February 25, 2019
By Samiha Kazi and Bryant Xia
With more than 40 consecutive state titles, Lexington High School’s debate team boasts what LexDebaters lovingly refer to as “Lexington hegemony.”
The LHS debate team competes in policy, Lincoln-Douglas and public forum styles and represents the school in tournaments throughout the nation.
The winning tradition has continued this academic year, especially at the Newark Invitational, where the team managed to close out finals in both novice and varsity policy divisions. At the same tournament, the Novice Lincoln-Douglas team won the final as well. Additionally, nine out of the top fifteen recognized speakers at the tournament were from Lexington.
The pinnacle of high school debate is the Tournament of Champions (TOC), which many debaters spend years trying to reach. To qualify, debaters much reach certain elimination levels at highly competitive national tournaments and receive “bids.” This year, seniors Talia Blatt and Debayan Sen qualified for the TOC in policy by December, and juniors Evan Li, Simran Gandhi, and Avery Fortier have received bids in Lincoln-Douglas. Additionally, in February, Blatt and Sen won the prestigious Harvard tournament with an undefeated record, receiving a third TOC bid.
Behind these achievements are hours of preparation which include research, practice rounds and drills.
“We all divide up the work so we see which schools are going to a tournament and research all the [arguments they make]. Then we make things called case negs which are like responses to other teams’ arguments,” Emily Qiu, a junior and third year policy debater, said.
This preparation also requires extensive research on current events.
“Debaters pay special attention to the current events in the world, monitoring the most [important] political situations that can be used in their arguments,” Larry Lin, a sophomore policy debater, said.
As much as debate is about research and technical argumentation, it is also about persuasive, presentational speech. Debaters aim to increase their speed, clarity, and enunciation.
“In policy debate especially, speaking drills aim to allow debaters to convey as many of their points in the time limit given to them without sacrificing clarity. These drills can involve reading backwards, saying words such as "watermelon" between each word in a text, or even speed reading, or spreading, with a pen in one's mouth,” Lin said.
It’s a lot of work and time, but participants are driven by love for the activity.
“I enjoy debate because it gives me an opportunity to learn about topics that I normally might not look into, but also topics that are extremely important and controversial today,” Qiu said.
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