2009 Lab Placement Survey for LD

Hello UTNIF campers for 2009,

I sent this information out via email today. If you did not receive it, then either I don't have the correct email address for you or this email was blocked by your spam/junk filter. You will continue to get email from me, so please add my address to your safe list so that I don't get lost in your spam filter. My email is sthomas@mail.hockaday.org. If you still don't get emails from me, please contact me to verify that I have your correct address. You also can keep checking the blog for information.

This survey (see below) is needed to gather information so that we can best determine lab placement for our LD students. Your answers will be provided to your lab instructors to help them get to know about you and your goals. For those of you who are new to camp, labs are the classes you will be divided into for instruction. Please answer the following questions and email them back to me ASAP at sthomas@mail.hockaday.org. I would like all lab placement surveys returned by July 1.

Here is the lab placement survey

Please fill out this survey to the best of your ability. The more information you can provide, the better we can help you.

1. Student's Name:

2. Coach's Name:

3. School and Location (city and state):

4. Grade you will be during 2009-2010 school year:

5. Have you previously attended any debate camps? Please tell us which camps, when you attended, and who were your lab instructors.

6. Please describe your debate experience. Tell us how many years you have competed in LD and approximately in how many tournaments in novice, junior varsity (some tournaments in different parts of the country have this division), and varsity. It is very important that you are clear as to if your experience was novice, JV, or varsity to help us best understand your background. Also describe to us any experience you have in other forensics events. Please be clear so that we can get an accurate picture of your experience.

7. Please give us your record at your five best tournaments this past year. Please tell us your preliminary record, elimination round reached if it applies, and division (novice, JV, or varsity). Here is an example: Hockaday TFA Tournament, 3-1, octofinals, varsity LD.

8. Describe the debate style in your region. If you are from Texas, tell us if your team focuses more on TFA or UIL or both. Does your team travel or stay in its region? Also, tell us if you plan to compete at TOC tournaments next year. If you plan to travel, please tell us where you hope to go.

9. What are your competitive goals for next year? What do you hope to achieve?

10. Describe your strengths as a debater.

11. Describe your weaknesses as a debater that you hope to improve upon at camp.

12. Place yourself in one of the following categories and explain why you placed yourself there:

A: Advanced -- You have qualified for championships before such as your state championship (TFA State or UIL State in Texas), NFL Nationals, or TOC. You've competed in LD for 2-3 years already and break regularly to elimination rounds.

B: Varsity -- You've competed in debate 2-3 years already. You have an average varsity record. Sometimes you win, but you aren't yet consistent. If you are from Texas, you may have come close to qualifying for TFA State, such as getting 6-8 of the needed 10 points.

C: Intermediate -- Most of your prior debate experience was as a novice. You have been a successful novice debater, regularly reaching elimination at this level. You've competed steady for at least a year. You might have a few varsity competitions under your belt, but you most likely struggled when debating higher level kids. For the most part, you feel comfortable with the foundational skills.

D: Beginning -- You are a beginner with little to no experience in LD prior to coming to camp. If you have competed before, it has been at only a few competitions at the novice level, and you may have struggled in terms of your win-loss record. You feel you still could benefit from learning the foundational skills to build upon them. Even if you have debated some before, if you feel like you still need work on the foundational skills (such as understanding case construction, the function of the criterion, learning to flow, etc.), then you should place yourself in this category.

BE HONEST in answering this question. The goal is for you to learn and improve this summer. You don't want to be in a lab that is either below your skill level or over your head, making it difficult for you to follow instruction. You will get the most out of camp and improve the greatest if you are properly placed and don't feel overwhelmed. Every year, we have some kids who insist on being in a higher level lab than is appropriate. These students usually don't get as much out of camp than students placed below them with more appropriate instruction. Our teachers are highly qualified from top to bottom at UTNIF. We do not only put our best people at the top. I strongly believe that younger debaters often need the strongest teachers. I am convinced, for example, that we have by far one of the strongest novice labs in the country because of the quality of our teachers at this level. We've had kids go on from our beginning and intermediate labs to qualify for their state championships the next year, as well as NFL Nationals. So, don't be shy about telling us your accomplishments but also be truthful about what you need so we can best help you.

13. Please look over our staff list on our website (http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/debate/UTNIF//staff-ld.html). Are there any staff members with whom you specifically would like to request to work? Are there any staff members with whom you know you do not want to work? This information will be kept confidential. Only Ms. Thomas will see it.

14. Do you have any other concerns or information you would like to share? If you are a repeater to UTNIF, are there any changes you hope to see at the camp?

Thank you! We look forward to meeting our new campers in July and to seeing our repeat campers again this summer.

Stacy Thomas
UTNIF LD Director
Hockaday Debate Coach