Being involved in academic UIL is a good way to get involved in high school. Being in UIL allows students to do more activities in school besides required academics and LCM offers a variety of different UIL activities for students to join.
Two of the activities in UIL that the school offers are Ready Writing and Spelling. In Ready Writing, students are given two hours to write an expository essay. Students choose from one of two prompts; the prompts are typically excerpts from famous literature or speeches. The Spelling competition is comprised into two sections. In section one, students are given 30 minutes to answer 15 questions focused on vocabulary and proof-reading. In section two, students hand-write 70 words read to them by the contest director. The sponsor for both events is Katie Brown in room 233.
Another event that the school offers is UIL Journalism. In UIL Journalism the contestants are given a hypothetical situation that has happened on a fictional high school campus, complete with information about what happened and direct quotes from those involved. They then have to write a journalistic style article in response to the prompt. There are five distinct types of contests: News Writing, Feature Writing, Editorial Writing, Headline Writing, and Copy Editing. The sponsor for all of these events is Lindsey Fruge in room 341.
Additional events that the school offers are Number Sense, Calculator, and Mathematics. Each team has six members who compete and meet in advisory Tuesday and Thursday. In all of the math UIL events competitors have to solve all the problems in your head, with the exception of Calculator. The sponsors for Number Sense, Calculator, and Mathematics are Bryan Christian (room 140) and Ricky Ryan (room 135).
Another event available to students is debate. There are three types of debates and also extemporaneous speaking. CX Debate is where teams of two partners debate a resolution. In LD Debate, students go one-on-one opposing one another. Lastly, Congress Debate is in a format similar to debates in the US Congress over several bills and resolutions. Alongside these three events, students also have the opportunity to compete in extemporaneous speaking. They are given topics to choose from and have 30 minutes to create a speech to present before a judge. The sponsor for debate is Elise Fountain in room 221.
Other UIL events that the school offers to students are UIL One Act Play, Prose, and Poetry. In One Act Play, there are six different levels the UIL theater team competes at: District, Bi-District, Area, Region, and State. The troupe has to perform a 40-minute show with a seven-minute set up and seven minute strike. Before they perform their show, part of the competition they are judged on is the tech rehearsal at the location where they set up, where they spike their set, load their sets and prop pieces, and work out technical details like lighting, sound tests, and practice set up and strike.
In UIL Prose, students choose two pieces to read in front of the judges. The first piece, Category A, must be from an excerpt from a published work, whilst Category B can be from online. Poetry is the same as Prose, except that students read two poetry pieces. The sponsor for UIL Prose and Poetry and One Act Play is Heather Creech in room H2.
There are many more UIL activities that LCM offers to students. Computer Science is for anyone who wants to work with computers and coding, and it’s sponsored by Terry Morris in room 141. There is also Literary Criticism, which is sponsored by Taylor Hurst in room 344, and science which is sponsored by Cori Burrell in room 116.
