Stanford National Forensic Institute

A special session directed by renowned debate coach Les Phillips which is specially targeted towards novice and intermediate public forum competitors. Students begin with the fundamentals and progress through the curriculum at a comfortable pace. The goal of this session is to have students who come in as beginners or near beginners functioning as mid to high level intermediate students by the time the regular session begins. Participation in the 2nd week core session that follows is highly recommended.

Students will practice individual speeches in addition to participating in full length practice rounds. The curriculum is designed to provide a steady progression from learning to craft a case and individual arguments and positions, and then full length debates.

Foundational debate theory and practice will be covered, with a strong emphasis on students learning by doing rather than being talked at in lecture, although for the purposes of covering all necessary curricular material, some lecture will be incorporated into the program.