I stand in the back of the mostly empty classroom, hearing a snatch of Greg’s monotonous and stilted rebuttal to today’s topic. Something about “Texting Spaces Being Allowed in Movie Theaters,” according to the emailed schedule. Yadira is taking notes, fighting back a yawn. She’s adopted a pretty drastic hairdo over the winter break, and the shaved side of her wavy black hair has externalized that intimidating part of her personality that previously didn’t come out until she actually, y’know, spoke. On the stage, Yadira is a debate chimera of perfect posture, piercing eyes, and retort that always skirts the line between well read and downright condescending.

“Now, a typical LED headlamp puts out roughly five hundred to a thousand lumens. Your average smartphone can easily meet that wattage,” Greg sputters.

He’s panicking, even with Yadira being the only person in the room. His facts are correct, I assume, but as always, his voice is full of contradictions, stilted and frantic. To say that public speaking does not come naturally to Greg is an understatement. He is phenomenally smart—three of his essays have already been featured in small print magazines and one of them even won a statewide contest. But unfortunately for Greg, he is also the embodiment of the word “harmless”: cursed with big innocent eyes and curls so bouncy you have to control yourself not to pull one to watch it boing.

“Multiplied by the average number of times people check their phones, with check ranging at less than two minutes of continuous usage, the cinematic viewing experience becomes a veritable, um, ordeal.”

“All right, I’m calling it, Greggers,” Yadira says, putting down her pencil and making a T with her hands. “You’ve officially lost me.”

There are no big real-world topics at these debates. No gun control, no immigration. Nothing that could derail a YouTube comments section. We’re high schoolers, after all. We tend to be given topics that audiences might discuss among themselves in the hallway after the competition.

Yay or nay: should J. K. Rowling have come down on Dumbledore’s sexuality or leave the page to speak for itself? Double-dipping a chip at a party: ethical or monstrous? Rushing to the airport to declare your love: romantic or emotional coercion? I swear, they just go by TV sitcom premises. Where the rhetorical academic rigor comes in is in the soundness of the arguments, thoroughness of counterarguments, and creativity of delivery of the three-person teams.

“I was building up to my thesis,” Greg says defensively, catching me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m highlighting the clear link between the luminosity of phone screens and the theater experience.”

“Yes!” Yadira says, rolling her eyes. “And the strongest argument against this premise is obviously the disturbance of aggregate luminosity. That’ll get us a round of applause.”