Faisal,+Samara

Samara Faisal Currently Attending UT Austin Memorial High School, Houston,TX Class of 2010

As far as my high school debate career goes, I debated 4 years in Varsity Policy mostly on the local Houston circuit until my junior year when I debated mostly on the national circuit. I've been to NFL Nationals in CCX three times, making it to the top 30 in the nation my senior year. In the Texas circuit, I've qualified to the TFA state tournament, won the NFL nationals qualifying tournament, and won the UIL district championship all three times consecutively. I am currently not debating for UT Austin. However, I have been very active in this year's topic as an assistant coach for the varsity policy teams at Houston Memorial High School.

Overall, I view the round based on how it is presented by you, the debaters. I wouldn't say that I have any preconceived notions or expectations in terms of arguments, but I do expect that you are able to adequately justify them using some sort of qualified logic. I think that debate is a very progressive activity whose boundaries for acceptable argumentation remains largely unbidden as long as you are able to defend it.

Topicality/Framework/Theory- Being mostly a critical debater in high school, I really enjoy this debate and am welcome to the various interpretations of debate that a team may offer. However, this debate does seem to get muddled very easily as far as impacts such as fairness and education are concerned. You need to warrant out specific reasons why I should prefer your respective implications over the opposing side, especially in the context of a link or impact turn.Framework and critical theory should be a question of evaluating certain notions over others because there is a substantial reason why doing so would be better. As long as you are able to show this in the debate, it should be fair game for me. As a side note, putting an RVI on the t flow probably won't get you anything other than my amusement unless it's strategically useful in the 2ar.

CPs/Das- Totally cool. Case specific DAs are awesome. The stronger link story you provide me with, the better access I will give you to your impacts. Don't expect me to do the work for you on this flow, most of the time it probably won't be to your advantage if I have to. Be clear and comparative in your impact calculus in terms of how your implications outweigh. I ran multiple conditional advocacies very frequently so I'm fine with it as long as you have theoretical justification for it. Running a Japan cp and a cap bad k probably isn't smart though. It would also be nice to hear a terminal impact that involves more complexity than an improbable nuclear war scenario.

The K (dun dun dun)- So I am fairly rehearsed in critical literature since I ran a K for each of the topics in the 4 years I debated. This is probably my favorite argument to hear and debate along with framework, however it is very easy for it to become my most hated depending on how a team executes it. The K debate needs to have extensive clash both on the theoretical level and the substantive one. This involves more than a team just saying " look they dropped our zizek 04 card, we win!". Explain the implications of a dropped argument and give it the appropriate impact. A kritk is essentially meaningless without a viable alternative (unless you spin it as a case turn in the 2n) which means that you need to have a clear articulation of what the world of the alt. looks like and how it compares to the post-fiat world of the aff. Winning the debate on a K also involves an element of persuasion which comes when a team understands more than just the tags and is able to freely talk about the issue at hand. This is a big thumbs up.

Speed is cool as long as you're clear. I give speaks based on strategy and persuasiveness which encompass being clear, so beast at both and you will be very happy with points.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me before the round or you can shoot me an e-mail - sfaisal423@yahoo.com Good luck and have fun!