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p. 11

spell no. 006

High school speech

three years on JLHS Forensics, captaining the original oratory team, coaching new speakers, and running service stuff on the side. 2x Glenbrooks semifinalist, 3rd in california, NIETOC semifinalist, 2x NSDA nationals octafinalist

askhow do you take a team of mostly first-time speakers and get them breaking to varsity and qualifying for nationals

ingredients
speech & debateoriginal oratorycoachingservice
state
shippedproject2026
note
2x Glenbrooks semifinalist · 3rd in california
annotation

every national result here was in original oratory, the state 7th was original advocacy

p. 12

✦ casting notes

01The first attempt

JLHS Forensics is one of the best public-school speech and debate teams around, and the whole point is training underrepresented students to actually use their voices. it's competition, coaching, and service, all pointed at advocacy and public speaking that's about your community. when i started captaining, the oratory team had one state qualifier and one national qualifier

02Where it got interesting

as captain i mentored novice and varsity orators on writing, research, and delivery, edited a ton of speeches, and ran free coaching programs that help people's college outcomes too. i also built new systems for community engagement, hosted public forums on stuff like AI harms, and organized recurring food and toy drives.

the coaching part is the part i'm proudest of. by the end the oratory team went from that one state qualifier and one national qualifier to sweeping the national qualifiers and taking most of the spots at the state qualifier, and almost 15 students broke at novice tournaments and moved up to varsity

03Where it landed

in original oratory i was a Glenbrooks national semifinalist twice, 3rd in the state of california, a National Individual Events Tournament of Champions semifinalist, and a 2x NSDA national tournament octafinalist. in original advocacy i placed 7th in the state. on the side i put in 500+ hours organizing and volunteering at fundraisers and drives, and we raised well over $2k

The full record

OO is original oratory, a persuasive speech you write and memorize yourself. OA is original advocacy, same idea but it has to propose an actual policy fix

event  result                   tournament
OO     semifinalist (2x)        Glenbrooks National
OO     3rd                      California state
OO     semifinalist             National IE Tournament of Champions
OO     octafinalist (2x)        NSDA National Tournament
OA     7th                      California state

team   1 state qualifier  ->  majority of state qualifier spots
team   1 nat'l qualifier  ->  swept national qualifiers
team   ~15 novices broke  ->  moved up to varsity
svc    500+ hours, $2k+ raised (fundraisers, food + toy drives)