The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

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March 2, 2008

Rhetoric team to participate in Texas National Open Tournament

By Kristin Edwards

The Huntsville Area Rhetoric Team, a group of Huntsville area homeschoolers whose purpose is to develop cultural communication skills, will participate in the Texas National Open Tournament from March 5-8 in Houston.

The tournament, sponsored by the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association, will challenge the students involved to further develop their public speaking skills.

“Next week, we’ll be going to our National Open, which basically means the students will be competing with people from 18 states,” said Melanie Springer, adult leader. “The students have experienced much success at their tournaments in 2007 and already in this competitive season, which began in January. We’re really excited to see how this one goes.”

Over the last year, the organization has made appearances at the Huntsville Public Library, the Huntsville and Trinity Boys and Girls Clubs and at the HEARTS Veterans Museum.

In 2007, the group performed for over 300 third grade students during the Reading is Fundamental program held at the public library.

According to senior Jacob Springer, director of community relations, tournaments like the National Open are a way to gauge how much the work done in the community has affected the group members.

“What we’re trying to do is develop cultural communicators and effective public speakers that have a message to share with the community,” he said. “The tournaments are a main way that we receive critiques and hone our speaking skills for the community.”

Since the group’s formation in September 2006, students in HART have competed in several regional and national tournaments, and two students gained national recognition in 2007.

“The tournaments are a blast,” HART chairman Philip Rosenberger said. “The skills we use can be applied to every area of life, and competition is a great way to sharpen them.”

Participation in HART has grown from an original four families to a total of 10 families with over 25 students.

“A lot of the people who have joined were people we knew, but a big part of our enrollment has just been word of mouth,” Jacob Springer said. “It’s just amazing to see our more prominent students become more assured of themselves, while at the same time watching the lesser ones become more willing to speak.”

In 2007, HART became a Communicators for Christ chapter, which requires that the members over 12 years of age speak on four community platforms, and those between 6 and 11 years of age speak on two platforms.

“With over 125 community speaking platforms in 2007, HART recently received one of the National Chapter Participation Awards given at the Communicators for Christ Annual Masters Conference,” Melanie Springer said.

For more information, or to invite the students to speak or perform, contact Springer at (936) 295-3273.

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