Introduction

Speech & debate (sometimes called “forensics”) is one of the more unique extracurricular activities offered at Lincoln. Students will train and compete in a range of events, building skills in critical thinking, public speaking, argumentation, and even character acting and joke-timing. From September to June, we’ll be actively competing at schools across the state, and actively practicing at Lincoln.

We have a successful program in both debate and individual events with reigning state champions in each through out the year.  In 2016-17, Lincoln was the champion of the Portland Interscholastic League and won the State Championship for 6A schools.   And, we qualified eight competitors for Nationals in Birmingham.  We have a long history of success at every level – local, state, and national – and our goal is to teach our students practical skills that will be useful throughout the rest of their lives. 

A core benefit of Lincoln’s program is the team culture we create. Although we’re all committed to the academic side of speech & debate, we try to create a comfortable, open, mutually-supportive atmosphere for students.  Speech & debate is a great opportunity for students new to the Lincoln community to meet other students with shared interests, whether those be politics, music, drama, or something else entirely.

These brief rules and regulations, codified in our Team Agreement Form below, are intended as a set of expectations and procedures to make sure we have a successful year, and to provide new members of the team (students and parents alike) an overview of what we do, and how we do it. If you have questions, contact Coach Benjamin Harrison at bharrison@pps.net. If you want to read more about the team, please review this website.

Our teams member may also qualify for a National Speech & Debate

 Association Cords (yellow & maroon) for graduation.