Speech Team Winners!

Melville Lewis, Cameron Sharpe, Octavia Baxley, Ishion Brown and Michael Miles

This past weekend TAF Academy’s Speech Team enjoyed a day of competing at Federal Way High School. The tournament had some stiff competition, and our students held their own. Cameron won the Top Novice award in Oratory and qualified for the State Tournament. Ocatavia and Ishion qualified for the State Tournament in Interpretive Reading. Michael and Stephon qualified for the State Tournament in Duo Interpretation. Five out of our six students qualified for the State Tournament! This is the Speech Team’s third tournament and first year of competing.

Tournament days run at least 12 hours long and our students must keep their energy up for every round. Judges critique each performance on ballots and decide the ranking of each round. Competitors are judged on their ability to persuade, body movements, coherent points, relevant topics, diction and staying within time constraints. The students receive the ballots after the tournament and learn from judges’ comments how to improve their communication skills.

Each member of the TAF Academy Speech Team is dedicated to an individual event, weekly practices and meetings. The individual events our students participate in include Original Oratory, Interpretive Reading, Duo Interpretation and Humorous Interpretation.  Head Coach Andy Stuckey and Assistant Coach Krista Wright hold weekly practices for the team, helping the students construct speeches, design movements and create powerful performances. We are extremely proud of the team’s hard work and they can’t wait to compete at the state level. Go Speech!