On Sunday, Feb. 6, Kingswood Oxford’s Forensic Union team gathered on campus to host their annual public speaking tournament.
This public speaking event was the second virtual tournament that KO’s Forensic Union team has hosted due to COVID-19-related safety precautions. Around 60 students in total attended, hailing from nine different New England Independent schools: Hotchkiss, St. Sebastian’s School, The Roxbury Latin School, Northfield Mount Hermon, Choate, Governor’s Academy, Windsor School, Buckingham Browne & Nichols, and the Stoneleigh-Burnham School.
Competing in debate and public speaking tournaments via Zoom has become quite familiar for KO Forensic Union members, as all competitions over the last two years have been virtual. KO hosts this public speaking tournament every February as part of the school’s membership in the Debating Association of New England Independent Schools, otherwise known as DANEIS. This year, the event was co-hosted by the Stoneleigh-Burnham School, an independent school in Greenfield, Mass. Coaches and student leaders from KO collaborated with those of the Stoneleigh-Burnham School via Zoom to coordinate invitations, gather information about what students would compete in what categories, prepare prompts, and set up the event’s Zoom with breakout rooms and judges.
Junior and senior Forensic Union officers were integral to the event’s success behind the scenes. These officers included seniors Teddy Schwartz, Samhita Kashyap, Minseo Kim, Elsa June Ciscel, and Ricardo Croes, as well as juniors Manu Narasimhan, Luke Roen, Johnny Kung and Jaeden Curcio.
Samhita and Manu took on the job of running tabulations and figuring out which students did well in which category, assigning top rewards via Google Sheets, while Teddy and Minseo welcomed competitors by giving an opening speech at the beginning of the tournament to inform participants about how the day would run. Other volunteers timed and moderated rounds.
Each room had two judges, who had to be coaches from either KO or another school, and one timer, who could be a student. KO’s faculty judge volunteers were history teacher Ted Levine and Director of Admissions Susan Emery.
There were three different categories of speeches in this year’s tournament, and competitors had to compete in all three categories. One was interpretative reading – which is what KO students do for Speakers’ Forum sophomore year – and the second was a choice between a traditional persuasive speech or an “after-dinner speech,” and the third was a choice between an impromptu speech or an ethical dilemma.
Five KO students competed in the tournament, including junior Frank Pu and senior Sam Merkatz who both used the event as an opportunity to practice the speeches they plan to use to compete in Internationals, a worldwide tournament which is rapidly approaching in March.
Junior Arav Kumar competed in his second public speaking tournament ever with an interpretive reading speech, which was a brand new event for him. Junior Charlotte Eberle performed in her first ever competition, giving her speech from last year’s Speakers’ Forum and earned an impressive 90 points. “The top score was actually a 95, so to break the 90 barrier is a really big deal,” English teacher and Forensic Union advisor Michelle Caswell explained. “Only advanced speakers will break that.” Sophomore Minnila Muthukumar did an interpretive reading from “The Fault in Our Stars” and also earned a 90 without ever having practiced that event before.
Mrs. Caswell has been the faculty advisor for KO’s Forensic Union team for the past five years; however, after this tournament Mrs. Caswell has officially handed off this position to the team’s two new coaches, history teacher Stephanie Sperber and Spanish teacher Carolina Croes. “Mrs. Sperber and Mrs. Croes have been with us all year, and this tournament was the last major thing that kind of has a learning curve that they wanted to have my help with,” Mrs. Caswell explained.
Although the event was on Zoom, KO students were still able to gather together on campus and compete as a team. Students ate lunch from Hall’s Market together in Seaverns and overall spent the day enjoying competition and collaboration while also improving their public speaking skills.
