Wilber,+Jacqueline

Coaching Experience: Roosevelt High School - Sioux Falls, SD 2010-2014 Alcott High School - Chicago, IL 2009-2010

Education: DePaul University - Chicago, IL - Masters of Education, 2010 University of South Dakota - Vermillion, SD - B.A. in English, 2007

Overall Thoughts: I am involved with debate because I am unbelievably impressed by what it can do for bright students in a short amount of time. I love the idea that there is a club of nerds who compete against each other in a verbal chess game to determine who has the best wits. In general, I view debate as a game - one that is designed to improve speaking skills, research abilities, self confidence, and a host of other opportunities. Because I value this activity to the degree that I do, I try very hard to find qualified judges to evaluate rounds. I know how important it is to have the correct decision made; and while I am an enthusiast for the activity and pretty solid novice debate teacher, the nuances of the game at the elite varsity level often escape me. So, if you see me in the back of the room, know that a college or former high school debater was unavailable, and I am trying to cover our judging obligations so I can take kids to the tournament. That being said, here are some of the things you might want to know:

Topicality - I don't have an opinion on the reasonability vs. competing interpretations question, so feel free to persuade me either way. I'm probably not fast enough at flowing or technically savvy enough to keep up with highly technical arguments, so please slow down and stay organized if this is your 2NR strategy.

Disadvantages - Have a blast running all the disadvantages you want. My kids run politics quite a bit, so there is a chance I will be able to keep up with you there. I give a lot of weight to link evidence on both sides, so win your link/no link argument and I am usually persuaded to vote for you.

Counterplans - I am usually pretty confused after a 1NC with multiple counterplans and kritiks with disadvantages that link to both the K and CP. Everyone else seems to find this acceptable, but I think I could easily be persuaded to vote aff on conditionality in these instances. I also am probably not technical enough to properly evaluate counterplan or perm theory if everything is in abbreviations. Now that I sound like I can't evaluate anything, know that I have a functional understanding of counterplans and theory arguments, so don't be scared to run your strategy.

Kritiks - I am pretty familiar with kritik literature from my literary criticism courses in college, but I am less familiar with how these arguments function in the debate. It's helpful to me if you can explain how the alternative solves, how the plan links to the kritik, and why the impacts of the kritik outweigh that of the affirmative. I do think that the aff should get to weigh their impacts against the kritik, although I am sure there is an instance in which I could be persuaded otherwise.

Performance - I have teams that do performance and teams that run traditional/topical affirmatives. Overall, I think the performance movement is pretty great and I like seeing different opinions and ideas integrated into the debate community. I usually can be persuaded that the state is bad, although a generic state link is less persuasive. Additionally, I can be convinced that while the state is bad, it is our venue for change. I also get the argument that teams should probably follow the resolution so we can learn about the topic, but I also buy the argument that there are a lot of things about debate that aren't fair, so crying fairness in that instance is less compelling to me. Anyway... it's almost like there could be a debate about this...

Speaker Points - I like debate so if you look like you like and respect debate too, I will reward you with speaker points. I am also a sucker for highly organized speeches because then my flow looks great and I am less confused. I'm turning 29 this year, so be nice to my old ears and slow down. All of these things will help your points.

Have fun!!