Please note the key dates below for 2023-2024.

• March 9 - Regionals (Surry County Regional may be an alternate date)
• March 23 - State Finals

NOTE - Topics will be determined in early January for the 2024 events

2023 Extemporaneous Speaking Topics:

Regional Topics:

Round 1 - Post High School Education

Round 2 - Artificial Intelligence

Only two rounds will be presented at Regionals. 

State Topics:

Round 1 - US Economy

Round 2 - Mental Health

Round 3 - US - China Relations

2023 Public Forum Debate Topic:

Resolved: The United State Federal Government should ban the collection of personal data through biometric collection technology.

We have resources to help new coaches understand forensics and judges to prepare to judge the events. The Prezi required for all judges is here.

The judge training video for Public Form Debate is here.

A video to help understand Public Forum Debate is here.

All ballots are now posted in the resources section of our website. They can also be found here for Speech events and here for Public Forum Debate.

This link from the National Speech and Debate Association may be used to access the rules which will be used to govern the actual events:

Complete rules are included in the NCASA competition rules linked here. All competition dates are shown above.

Events (and number of students per entry)

• Humorous Interpretation (1)
• Dramatic Interpretation (1)
• Extemporaneous Speaking (1)
• Original Oratory (1)
• Duo Interpretation (2)
• Public Forum Debate (2)

Each school may have a maximum of 3 entries per event. Each school may have a maximum of 12 total entries.

Sweepstakes points will be awarded to the top ten entries in each event with first place earning 10 points, second place 9 points, and so on to tenth place earning 1 point.