On Nov 2 and 3, the Devils Lake High School Student Congress team of seniors Angela Chen, Dakota Lange and Kaden Wass, junior Olivia Mitchell, sophomore Barrett Engberg, and freshmen Jossy Lamb and Kennedee Masdon completed their competition season with personal and team wins.
Student Congress, also known as Congressional Debate, is a high school activity that directly mimics the procedures of our US government. Students research and debate current issues in the format of resolutions with the goal of convincing other representatives in their House to affirm or negate the resolution – exactly as our Senate and Congress do! As North Dakota is the only state in the union to allow it, the Firebird Representatives competed in the chambers of the state Capitol building in Bismarck.
The Firebird team has three required meets each year – East meet in Fargo, West meet in Mandan and State in Bismarck, as well as an Invitational meet in Moorhead this year.
Overall, students compete against themselves – to be better now than they were before! Speeches are three minutes in length and scored based on organization, content evidence, argumentation and rebuttal, and delivery and the goal is to improve on past meet and/or speech scores, as well as developing critical thinking on their feet skills.
Students are scored based on the number of times they speak and the quality of the speech. During the 2023 State meet, the team as a whole ranked 10th in the state with Dakota Lange and Olivia Mitchell taking the lead in speeches given and medaling in Houses 2 and 3, respectively. Other Senior legislators Kaden Wass and Angela Chen made strong arguments in their Houses, speaking five times over the course of both days, but didn’t place in the rounds. Sophomore Barrett Engberg spoke in House 3 a total of three times, as he was limited by technology – a great learning experience! Jossy Lamb and Kennedee Madson are – literally and figuratively – our Freshmen legislators and received valuable experience and advice from the upperclassmen and spoke four times during the two days at State.
