by Isaiah McPeak | Nov 17, 2016 | Best Resources, Coaching, Coaching a Club, Thinking Strategically
What should you look for when reviewing a case? We want debaters to process for themselves and make intentional choices. If they know why they did it a certain way, then it’s probably defensible. But even if they did a good thing without knowing why, challenge them,...
by Isaiah McPeak | Nov 16, 2016 | Best Resources, Coaching, Coaching a Club
Note from a Coach: Here’s the state of the union: the year has gone extremely well so far—students are very positive about how things are going. However, I still feel totally unqualified to move them forward. [Student1] brought me her case the other day—so excited to...
by Isaiah McPeak | Oct 24, 2016 | Coaching a Club, Speech Events
So what is most likely to help club members improve their speeches? The parents and students at Lone Star Christian Communicators, a speech and debate club in Austin, Isaiah was asked to give an hour talk on giving and receiving speech feedback in club. Several...
by Emily Rose | Apr 22, 2016 | Coaching, Coaching a Club, Soapbox, Speech Events, Tournaments
Bright-eyed, bright-minded, bright future. Brae is one of my weekly students. He’s like most of you. Eager to spot logical fallacies, quick to provide well-researched evidence for his beliefs, hopes to become President one day, probably has a real shot. He wants...
by Abbey Lovett | Apr 11, 2016 | Coaching, Coaching a Club, From Advanced to National-Class, Technique, Tournaments, Video
In this post, Isaiah addresses winning outrounds. He takes a look at a couple techniques to utilize to increase your chances of winning those tough rounds. This post is especially beneficial for debaters who consistently break, but can’t manage to get past that...
by Isaiah McPeak | Apr 1, 2016 | Coaching a Club, From Intermediate to Advanced
There is a certain “I’m a stock issues coach” coaching persona that is the equivalent of “I already considered everything, made my decision, and am set in my ways.” This persona tries to shut down learning certain argument types, usually out of good motive – keep...
