MHHS Debate Team

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This weekend the Speech & Debate team, otherwise known as Forensics, competed at their very first tournament; needless to say, they talked their way into trophies!
Their competition was held at Lodi High school, against 15 other schools, and at the Home of the Flames, the only thing on fire was the Mountain House team! Literally burning down the house, the following debaters had a perfect record with (3) wins and (0) losses:

*Vishwas Shukla & Sawera Haq
*Zaid Umar & Passa Pungchai
*Jacqueline Azah & Seema Shaik

These debate students were required to debate on both sides of the topic:

Resolved: In United States public K-12 schools, the probable cause standard ought to apply to searches of students.

However it ought to be known, out of the 13 debate teams that went, every single one of them won at least one debate round, if not two ... perfect record or not, that was an awesome showing!

Also, making history the following students took unbelievable placings as well ...

Justin Frances - 2nd place Impromptu ...
Vishnu Pratik Vennelakanti - 4th place Impromptu ...
Vishwas Shukla - tie for 4th place Impromptu ...
For those of you who don't know, this is where the student is given three topics, they have 10 seconds to choose one and then two minutes to prepare a five minutes speech; and it has to make sense!

Aditi Sen & Misa Sanjan  - 1st place DUO...
Adya Mishra & Chinmayi Mutyala - 2nd place DUO ...
For those of you who don't know, DUO is a two person interpretive event; the students are to tell a story, 10 minutes in length, with NO costumes, NO props and they may NOT touch each other; they do this all while playing multiple characters, various voices and a ton of sound effects.

Tanaya Kollipara ... 2nd place DI
For those of you who don't know, Dramatic Interpretation is an interpretive event where the students need to find a script, play, book or short story and recounts the story from memory, 10 minutes in length, specializing in dramatic events. There are NO props, NO costumes and it can be one, or multiple, characters.

Anya Nayyar - 3rd place OI
Seema Shaik - 4th place OI
For those of you who don't know, (OI) otherwise known as Oratorical Interpretation, is reciting a speech that has been given publicly before, like a Ted Talk, closing arguments of a court case or a commencement address; the idea is to believe in the message of the speech so much that it needs to be said again. While it is not the students work, nor an acting piece, it combines the message they would want to write, with the presentation that is uniquely theirs.

These students did an unbelievable job this weekend, and despite first time jitters they know how to say what they gotta say ... and they say it well!

Well done Mustangs ...