See Speech Plan, Section 1000, for specific speech eligibility rules. Selection of Categories. Categories are chosen by the UIL staff and the Prose and Poetry Advisory Committee utilizing suggestions from high school speech coaches and university speech faculty. The categories are designed to encourage contestants to explore the wide variety of points of view and feeling available in prose. The categories are discussed and defined in more detail in the UIL Prose and Poetry Interpretation Handbook, available through the League office.
Coaches are responsible for reviewing it.
The contestant shall perform one and only one published prose selection, fiction or nonfiction, written by an author who was born in the Southwest United States. For the purpose of this category, the Southwest as a geographical area shall comprise the states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California, Nevada, and Utah. Only a prose work by an author born in one of the eight states listed is acceptable. The author used in this category shall not be used in the other prose category. Documentation of place of birth is required.