Later this week, three college kids from Iowa head for Peoria, Illinois, for the national tournament of the American Forensics Association. Ryan Struve is one of them, and explains he’s entering five events like Impromptu Speaking. He says you’re given a quote by someone famous and have seven minutes to prepare and deliver a speech agreeing or arguing with them. Struve will also compete at persuasive speech, extemporaneous speaking on current events, an informative speech, and “communication analysis.”He says you take a “communication artifact” like a billboard, news article or an ad, apply some theory of communications, and tell what it says about society. Struve plans to attend the U-of-I law school next year, but says forensics can benefit anyone.Struve says students who’ve had forensics may go on to be lawyers, or broadcasters, but he majored in computer science and has teammates in sociology and molecular biology. Struve is a senior at Cornell College and his coach, professor Carol Whiteman, has taken a team to the national forensics competition fifteen of the last 16 years. Also going from Iowa are UNI students Nikki Vap and Amy Larson.
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