CMSDL T4 Registration Open – Due Monday, February 28th

The schedule for competition at CMSDL Tournament Four, the Chicago Middle School Debate Championship, takes place on March 12th, 2011. The MS T4 Registration Form is due by 5 pm Monday, January 28th, so please confirm with your students by that time.

The location is at Lindblom Math and Science Academy, which is at 6130 S. Wolcott Ave.

Divisions are as follows:

Varsity – debaters entering their third or fourth year of competitive middle school debate, regardless of grade. If a student attended a tournament last year or in a previous year and competed, that would count as a prior year of experience.

JV – debaters entering their second year of debate, regardless of grade. If they debated at a tournament last year, they’re JV (or Varsity, if they’re more ambitious, or have debated in a tournament in two previous years) this year.

Note that since neither Varsity or JV are large enough to be separate divisions, they’ll be combined at T4, meaning both the JV and Varsity will debate the two affirmatives as well as Topicality this year. For the first time, Novices will also debate Topicality this year. The CMSDL Argument Limits explain which arguments are allowed in which division’s debates. We’ve also updated the CMSDL Core Files Strategy Guide to make it easy for debaters to find which pages they’ll need to use – one page for Novice, one for JV/Varsity, including where to find the 1NC Topicality violations and 2AC affirmative Topicality responses.

Novice – brand-new debaters entering their first year of debate, regardless of grade. First year schools joining the league could start all their debaters in Novice, for example.

Debaters may move up in level, e.g., second-year debater who wanted to debate Varsity or Novice who wanted to debate JV to get more of a challenge later in the year, but may not move down a level in eligibility – we don’t want students who are more experienced competing against Novices, for example, since they wouldn’t be progressing and learning after a previous year of debate.

Support school judges:

Coaches of support schools should e-mail Forrest Sumlar by 5 pm on Monday, February 28th with the names of all committed, confirmed student judges who are available to judge at Tournament Four. He will let you know by 6 pm on Wednesday, March 2nd which students can be hired to judge.