A metacritical judging model for contest oral interpretation that evaluates the performer's critical decisions is designed to meet three criteria: (1) it attempts to incorporate the advances of oral interpretation scholars outside the forensics community with the activity at forensics tournaments, (2) it recognizes that forensics competition is fundamentally a pedagogical activity, and (3) it recognizes that a forensic tournament is different from a public performance and calls for appropriately different behavior. To evaluate the fit between the literature, the performance, and the performer's critical judgment, the metacritical judge must view the interpretation as an argument. The judge evaluates both the introduction and the performance to determine whether claim, literature, and performance all support each other. The metacritic must also evaluate the worth of the introductory claim to determine if the critical thinking behind the performance is really interpretation or merely description. The most important implication for the metacritical model is the increased importance of the introduction to the judge's decision. Other implications include a call for interpretation-specific criticism from the judges rather than performance-specific criticism, a potentially greater depth for the performers, and interpreters' recognition of the rhetoricity inherent in poetics. (HTH)