And debate requires students to research their ideas and support them with evidence, teaching them to conduct research and assess sources. Those skills help students express their thoughts better in their academic work and their college applications not to mention around your dinner table! The College Board recently revamped the SAT test to focus more on exactly the sorts of skills debate teaches. Debaters likewise outscore non-debaters on every section of the ACT.
Studies across the country have found that high school debate improves reading ability, grades, school attendance, self-esteem, and interest in school. Many universities even offer scholarships specifically for college debaters. For those who commit to speech and debate, it offers a lifetime of benefits. There are ex-debaters excelling in business, law, politics, academia, and many other fields. Perhaps most important of all, debate is fun! Guiding Questions for this Activity: How well can the students prepare and present logical argumentation for topic x or y?
How well can the students discriminate the pros and cons of the concepts x and y? Activity Outline and Procedure: First decide if this will be a formal or an informal debate. The formal debate would have more guidelines and clear topics. Once decided, the instructor can provide rules for the debate or they can be chosen by class consensus. Students can be provided the topic and then find their own resources, or the instructor can provide a listing of resources pertinent to the topic.
They will usually coincide with readings for that unit of materials. The actual debate can be synchronous with a required time limit or asynchronous with a requirement to actively post during the debate time days.
With an asynchronous debate, multiple debates would occur simultaneously. During the debate, questions are usually addressed to the debaters with an alternation between who answers first and second.
These may coincide with or follow an initial address stating their position. Each participant should be given a final statement. Following the debate, the instructor can provide feedback on performance. Peer review can also be used. Teaching Strategies: Guest can be used to facilitate the debate or even provide an expert on one side or both. The debate may also be joined with the fishbowl activity to provide additional assignment options.
Many controversial topics can lead to students with strong feelings one way or another. An environment should be maintained whereby students are respectful of one another. You can also suggest that students argue a topic counter to their personal views so as to address the issues from new viewpoints.
Encourage non-debaters participation by accepting questions from them. Content is what you actually say in the debate. The information on content provided below is a general overview of what will be expected when you debate. The final logistics of how long you will be debating, how many people will be in your group, and how the debate will unfold ie: which team speaks first etc. Case argument - the whole. Introduction - The case your group is making must be outlined in the introduction.
This involves stating your main arguments and explaining the general thrust of your case. This must be done briefly since the most important thing is to get on and actually argue it. It is also a good idea to indicate the aspects of the subject to be discussed by each of the team members. Conclusion - At the end, once everyone has spoken, it is useful to briefly summarize what your group has said and why.
Case argument - the parts. Having outlined the whole of your argument, you must then begin to build a case the parts. The best way to do this is to divide your case into between two and four arguments or divide your case based on the number of people in your group. You must justify your arguments with basic logic, worked examples, statistics, and quotes. Proof, or evidence, supporting your assertion is what makes it an argument. Under each of these basic headings you should then explain the reasoning behind the argument and justify it using the methods outlined above.
It is usually best to put the most important arguments first. Here is an example of a case outline:. This is true for three reasons. Firstly , most people base their votes on what they see and hear in the media. Secondly , the media can set the political agenda between elections by deciding what issues to report and in how much detail. Thirdly , the media have successfully demonized politicians over the last ten years so that now people are more likely to believe journalists than politicians.
All of the arguments in this case outline are debatable almost immediately you can see the counter-arguments , but they give the case a wide range which cover all kinds of issues.
The trick is not to come up with a watertight case, but a well argued one. Rebuttal — the parts. Arguments can be factually, morally or logically flawed.
They may be misinterpretations or they may also be unimportant or irrelevant. A team may also contradict one another or fail to complete the tasks they set themselves. These are the basics of rebuttal and almost every argument can be found wanting in at least one of these respects.
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