Stacey Chen competed for North Allegheny High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania. She was last year’s NFL national champion in International extemp and was the first receipient of the Extemp Central National Points award after winning Glenbrooks, the George Mason University Patriot Games Extemp Round Robin, Harvard, and the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions. Stacey now attends Yale University and is a contributor for Extemp Central. She shares her thoughts on the NFL National tournament in this article for Extemp Central readers.
Tag: Stacey Chen
Stacey Chen competed for North Allegheny High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania. She was last year’s NFL national champion in International extemp and was the first receipient of the Extemp Central National Points award after winning Glenbrooks, the George Mason University Patriot Games Extemp Round Robin, Harvard, and the Extemporaneous Speaking Tournament of Champions. Stacey now attends Yale University and is a contributor for Extemp Central. She shares her thoughts on the NFL National tournament in this article for Extemp Central readers.
by Stacey Chen
The Glenbrooks is one of the largest tournaments of the year in both speech and debate events, as well as one of the most fun! Extemp at Glenbrooks generally contains a fairly large and diverse pool of extempers from across the country. It is also “mixed” extemp, which may be different for extempers who come from districts that regularly split between “domestic” and “international” extemp. Although the size and quality of the field, as well as a possible switch to combined extemp, can be intimidating, there are a few things you can do to prepare well for the tournament and enjoy the experience rather than stressing out.
Preparation for the Glenbrooks was pretty standard for me because my district did not split between USX and IX. The rounds at Glenbrooks alternate between foreign and domestic topic areas, so it is important to prepare for both types of questions equally. Be sure to read and file articles from major publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, etc as usual. Many questions will be drawn from the headlines of these papers in the few weeks leading up to the tournament. On the domestic front, it is also useful to find smaller regional papers for more specific issues (e.g. The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, etc). For international issues, also try to include source diversity with articles from news sources like Der Spiegel, AllAfrica.com, The South China Morning Post, The Council on Foreign Relations, etc. These publications should give you a solid base of background knowledge and recent events; for more advanced extempers, delving into journals ranging from Foreign Affairs to Current History to The Washington Quarterly will provide you with a deeper theoretical knowledge for analysis. If you are just beginning to extemp or do not have enough time to devote to searching for journal articles, however, it may be much more beneficial to focus on covering major newspapers first. Although it is always helpful to have detailed and specific articles, do not waste time on obscure happenings in, say, Moldova, when you could be bolstering your Iran file.
by Logan Scisco
Last year was the first official year of the Extemp Central National Points Race and Stacey Chen of North Allegheny Senior High School in Wexford, Pennsylvania emerged victorious by a wide margin over the rest of her competitors. Chen’s season saw her win the Glenbrooks, the Harvard Invitational, the Extemp TOC, and arguably her biggest title of the year, the International Extemp national championship at NFL Nationals. She also managed to win the final round national championship, and the tournament, by one rank over Will Rafey of Bellarmine College Prep in California enabling her to capture the National Teams Points Race trophy for her team as well.
Stacey has agreed to become a writer for the Ex Files this season and as her first assignment, she decided to sit down and discuss her goals, accomplishments she earned last season, and offer advice to extempers who would one day like to achieve her level of success.
Logan Scisco: Thanks for deciding to sit down and share your thoughts with the extemp community Stacey and congratulations on being last year’s first Extemp Central National Points Race champion.
Stacey Chen: You’re welcome! Thanks for the opportunity to share with the extemp community… I apologize in advance for rambling.
Scisco: That should be okay, more is better than less with these interviews. Tell us how you got started with extemporaneous speaking.