From performing skits from TikTok, to reading vivid short stories, to reciting centuries-old poems, competitors at Richard Montgomery in the forensics tournament on Oct. 11, did it all.
“Forensics is basically just public speaking,” Bethesda Chevy-Chase senior George Sokol said. Forensics teams across all MCPS high schools make up the MoCo league, where students compete in various events. October 11’s tournament, hosted by Richard Montgomery High School, was the first this season—with it bringing new experiences for competitors.
Competitors choose any work of prose or poetry to perform. They carefully prepare pieces to recite, taking care to add their own voices and interpretations to the performance. Depending on the type of piece chosen, they are sorted into one of the eleven events. Events include Original Works, in which competitors recite works that they created, Poetry, in which competitors recite poetry, and Drama, in which students act out a character from a play or other scripted activity with their voice and movement. Richard Montgomery Team sponsor Stephanie Halloran explained the structure of a tournament. “There are four rounds. It’s like a swim meet—it’s all day. Students perform their pieces four times—two rounds in the morning, two in the afternoon,” she said.
Competitors can perform practically any piece they want. Blake High School senior Mia Rickman explained how forensics works. “You pick whatever category, whatever piece you want to do, you can write your own pieces, you can find pieces from anywhere on the internet, and you compete trying your best to bring your piece to life through word alone,” Rickman said. “There are no props; this isn’t theater. It’s just your interpretation of a piece to a judge.”
Judges decide everything in forensics. They score, give feedback, and determine who moves on to the next round. “I look for how well they’re projecting their voice, how well they present the material,” judge Carey Ostry, a nursing teacher at Edison High School, said. Mrs. Ostry also judges on how competitors project their voice while performing.
“I kind of was maybe recruited,” Mrs. Ostry joked, referring to how her husband is the Churchill forensics team coach. “But actually, I learned to like it a lot because I did dance and was in the arts growing up … it is nice to see the artistic side of the students,” she said. Ostry has been a judge for five years and still hasn’t judged all eleven events. In fact, just this tournament, she judged Interpretive Pieces for the first time. “I would [recommend judging forensics] especially if you have a student at this level of schooling or you have a passion or interest to see more of the artistic side of individuals,” Mrs. Ostry said.
Most competitors agree that the forensics community is incredibly supportive. “I’ll often see the students who are technically competing with each other in a category congratulating each other and saying how great their speech was or how great their poem was,” Micheal Kelley, the Blake high school team coach, said. Mr. Kelley has been in the forensics community for over 20 years, ever since he himself competed as a member of Quince Orchard’s team. He said that the community is similar to debate, except more laid back. “[Forensics practice is] really just like public speaking work,” Kelley said. “[It’s] trying to make their voice interesting or trying to figure out some gestures.” Alice Bragely, senior at Walter Johnson HS and a new member of forensics, agrees. “Being in the community has been a really positive experience so far, a lot of really nice people,”Bragely said.
Richard Montgomery forensics captain James Luo says that the positivity and support the community brings is one of its main draws. “People are allowed to feel comfortable and that’s a good thing because in public speaking you’re often taking on a lot of risk,” Luo said. However, as the team captain, Luo also wants the team to be as successful as possible. “There’s this balance that I have to strike between making sure that people feel comfortable to take risks versus pushing them out of their comfort zones.”
Still, Luo reiterates why he loves forensics. “Most people were trying it for the first time. I was very rusty so there wasn’t a lot of pressure to be perfect,” Luo said.
Richard Montgomery sophomore Jonathan Kim was one of the first-time competitors. “I’ve been doing forensics for five days,” he said. “I wanted to join because I wanted to improve my public speaking.” Kim also was the only competitor from RM to advance to the final round. He placed first in Extemporaneous Speaking. This is an event where each competitor is given a current affairs subject and a fixed time to prepare an oral presentation on it. “I’m not going to lie, I’m tired because I woke up early, but I think it was fun for my first time and I feel like I was proud of how I did,” Kim said, after the tournament.
During the fourth round of the tournament, in front of a silent room, Mia Rickman began to recite his selected prose piece “The God of Arepo” by @sadoeuphemist on Tumblr. Rickman practiced his piece for around three weeks before the tournament and says that he felt confident and prepared. Rickman often chooses unorthodox pieces. Performing a Tiktok skit series, Rickman has in previous years placed first in Reader’s Theater, which is when a competitor acts out a work without props, scenery, or special lighting. He also placed second in Slam Poetry with Kendrick Lamar’s song, “Meet the Grahams.”
To Rickman, forensics is more than just a competition. “[Forensics is] really good to help you build confidence and be a better speaker, ” he said. “I used to have a speech impediment, and so I went to speech therapy and that’s where I learned, ‘Hey, I can talk all day,’” he said. “To me, [forensics is] a way for me to express myself through someone else’s words.”
As with Rickman, forensics has helped Clarksburg High School senior Kendra Ndongo’s personal life. “All my life, I’ve been considered to be a very soft-spoken person, so I really struggled with raising my voice and the more I practiced [forensics] and the more I competed, I did develop a good voice, a strong voice for myself,” Ndongo said.
Ndongo performed a collection of poems that she compiled last year. “I started looking at different issues … relating to certain things, standards, in my family and … that a lot of people have for women and things that I was seeing online and debates that were going on in my classes” Ndongo said. “The first [poem] I read, “Women” by Louise Bogan, … really stood out to me and I established that as my theme, and the more and more I started collecting poems that I actually related to, poems that I actually loved, I kind of came up with this theme of the perils of women.”
RM freshman Hanlin Wang explains her reason for joining forensics. “I want to go into a career that involves public speaking…, probably law or psychology,” Wang said. Sokol agrees, and adds that forensics especially helped him with his public speaking skills. “Sometimes I’m not very good at [public speaking]. And I think [forensics] has helped me a lot,” he said.
The tournament was memorable for all. Ndongo says her favorite memory was connecting with competitors competing in the same classroom. “It was really lovely just getting to know [the other competitors], just us complimenting each other, hyping each other up, and then the moment you walk in the [cafeteria], you have your friends and just your classmates are just like supporting you, welcoming you,” Ndongo said. Hanging out with teammates in between rounds in the cafeteria was a reoccuring favorite experience. “My friends and I were playing card games, and we were playing Uno,” Rickman said. “It was really fun.”
Now students return to practicing their pieces and preparing for the next tournament in December, which will bring new experiences and memories shared. “We had a lot of people doing informative and extemporaneous so I’m hoping that we get more dramatic interpretation and poetry next time,” Ms. Halloran said. Both of those categories are her favorites. But most importantly, each student will choose something they enjoy to compete in. “When you like something,” Rickman said, ”you’re gonna put your entire foot into it, you’re gonna put your 110%.”
