Boston Debate League



2010-2011

Novice Curriculum Package

Table of Contents

What Novice Debate Should Look Like 1

Tournament Goals 2

Practice One 3-4

Practice Two 5-6

Practice Three 7-8

Practice Four 9-10

Handout One 11

Handout Two 12

For tournaments 3-5, there will be a novice division just for new debaters. Once a student has gone to two tournaments, or won an award in the novice division in their first tournament, they will be moved up to the JV division.

The goal of this guide is to provide you with the materials you need to get a new group of students ready to debate in the novice division. Our suggestion is to have one of your coaches work with your new students in separate practices to get your new debaters up to speed. As you can see from this curriculum, you should encourage some of your JV/Varsity to help- but think of these as a separate set of practices for new debaters. See the recruitment guide for help in finding new novice debaters.

What Novice Debate Should Look Like

Available Arguments

Afghanistan and South Korea Affirmative and Negative

Overview

The Affirmative team will present a plan and argue the plan is a good idea and the government should pass it. The negative will argue it is a bad idea and the government should not.

Both teams will make many arguments why the plan is a good or bad idea, and use evidence to back up their arguments.

Judging

If the judge decides the plan is a good idea, the affirmative wins. If they judge decides the plan is a bad idea, the negative wins. The judge will assign more weight to arguments that are backed up by evidence than those that are not

Speech by Speech

The 1AC (first affirmative speech): The Affirmative will present a plan that is outlined in four sections; a) inherency- what is happening now, b) harms- why that is bad, c) a plan, and d) why that plan solves the problem. This speech is pre-written.

The 1NC (first negative speech): The negative will make three to four arguments answering inherency, harms, and solvency. They should be a combination of evidence and analytic argument s (arguments the debaters thought of that have no evidence). The negative should try to number each argument. For example, “On inherency- my first argument is ……, Second…., Third….. Fourth….. On harms, my first argument is ……, Second….., Third…..” etc.

Later speeches- The debate will continue with each team answering, hopefully by number, the arguments their opponents made in the speech before. They should analyze evidence, both theirs and their opponents, as much as possible to support their arguments.

Later speeches will need to bring the individual arguments back to the larger question: Is the plan a good idea? The judge will ask him/herself at the end of the debate: Is the plan a good idea? If the answer is yes, then the affirmative wins. If the answer is no, then the negative wins.

Tournament Goals

Overall Goals

• Student will enjoy debate and look forward to practice and tournaments

• Students will believe that they can excel at debate

Basic Debate Skills:

• Students will learn to make and respond to arguments

• Students will use evidence to support their arguments

• Students will develop basic public speaking skills and self-confidence

• Students will develop critical reading skills through examination of evidence

Content

• Students will learn about and develop familiarity with the Afghanistan and South Korea Affirmative cases

• Students will learn about debating negative against the Afghanistan and South Korea case

Debate is a dynamic and challenging activity, and like all competitive activities, it requires hard work and dedication for even the best and brightest to succeed. The singular, overarching goal of the first tournament is to help students find this difficult activity welcoming, worthwhile, and most of all, fun. Students will be more likely to return to practice and work hard to improve, if they find the activity enjoyable to begin with. Therefore, at this stage, content and skills development are less important than simply getting the students to like debate.

The lessons included provide a blueprint of how to begin teaching debate. They can function as stand-alone activities, or can be used in sequence to build upon each other. These lessons should give students a basic understanding both of debate as an activity, and of the 2010-2011 resolution: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey. This, combined with the Afghanistan and South Korea Affirmative and Negative evidence packets, should prepare students for their first tournament.

Practice One: Introduction to Debate

Goals

• Students will find debate to be a fun and welcoming activity

• Students will gain familiarity with the idea and practice of public speaking

• Students will learn how to make and refute arguments.

Activity 1 – Icebreaker

1. Start off with a quick note of affirmation. Mention how impressed you are that students are joining an activity that has been proven around the country to help students improve their grades and get into and succeed in college, etc….

2. Invite older debaters into to quickly share reflections their reflections about why they like debate. Ask some to talk about how it took a while to get better, but it’s worth sticking with.

3. Do an icebreaker that gets students talking. You probably have one you like, but if not…

• The skittles game: bring in a bag or two of skittles and tell students they can take as many as they want. Once they have taken them, tell them they have to tell everyone one fact about themselves for each skittle they took. Go around the room and have students do that. Be easy on the students who took too many.

• Two truths and a lie- students tell everyone two truths and a lie about themselves- and the class has to guess which is which.

• Student interviews- students interview each other in groups of two and then have to report out to the class on the person they interviewed.

• The name game- in a circle, each student says an adjective that describes them that sounds like the same letter as their first name. My name is Strong Steve… Then go around the room, and each person has to say the names of all of the people in front of them and then add theirs. Ex. Strong Steve, Awesome Andrew, Kickin’ Craig, and I am Sleepy Sandy..

Activity 2 – Fun Debate

1. Tell the students that they’re going to have a debate against each other. If they seem talkative and agreeable, they can choose the topic of the debate. Just make sure they choose something that has two clear sides to it. If you’d prefer, you can pick a topic for them to debate. School policy questions tend to generate interest, though they are occasionally overdone. Other ideas could include: America cares too much about sports; America is not the most important country in the world; or “Everyone in America should move to a new state every three years to be exposed to new people and ideas.”

2. As a group, quickly throw arguments that support the resolution and that attack it onto the board. Then ask students who feel more comfortable defending the resolution raise their hands. This will be the attacking team. The rest will be the people defending the resolution. (Balance the teams as necessary—this portion of the activity is here to get students in the habit of arguing for sides they don’t necessarily agree with.)

3. Give groups 4 minutes to pick their best arguments to support their side and attack their opponents. Then hold the debate. It will have each side give a 3-minute opening statement, followed by a 90 second question/answer period. There will then be a speech from each team lasting 2 minutes that directly attacks the opposing side. Finally, each side will present a 2-minute closing statement summarizing their position. Depending on the size of your group, some people may take on multiple tasks within the debate.

4. Offer substantial positive reinforcement to the debaters. Point out good skills they have that will transfer well into real debates and ask them to brainstorm what parts of debate were hardest for them. This brainstorm can help you target your feedback to the skills they need most help with in later practices.

Practice Two: Introduction to Debate

Goals:

• Students feel they are part of a community of debaters at the school.

• Students begin to understand how

• Students have more experience expressing their opinions in front of an audience.

Activity 1 – Community Building Exercise

1. Invite a few experienced debaters into the room to participate in this activity.

2. Ask the experienced debaters to talk about a time when they were unprepared in a debate, lost miserably, or otherwise did not know what was going on. These shouldn’t be gruesome stories that scare away novices—make sure the older debaters know that the point is to show that you start inexperienced but can get rapidly better.

3. Ask everyone in the room to introduce themselves and describe an argument they were in that they ultimately won or should have won. Arguments with parents, friends, and teachers are all allowed, though it’s important for the teacher leading the activity to go first and set the right tone by describing a funny or light-hearted argument.

4. If the mood is right, you can use this activity to spring-board into a more general discussion about what it takes to win an argument. Talking about having evidence to back up your side, directly confronting what the other side is saying, and listening well can lay the groundwork for good debate skills in the future.

Activity 2 – Everyone Knows how to Debate

Materials Needed: “The Great Debaters” or other movie/television show

(NOTE: The “Agree, Disagree, Strongly Agree, and Strongly Disagree” signs for “4 Corners” should already be placed in the classroom.)

1. Before you begin the activity, remind students that everyone debates, with their friends and their parents and their spouses, even if they don’t realize they’re doing so.

2. Tell students that they’ll be watching a movie. Explain that, at times, you will pause the movie to present a debatable claim regarding the film. Use the claim to ignite the “4 Corners” Activity (or Soapbox). In other words, if you’re playing “4 Corners,” students should respond to the claim by moving to the corner that best represents their opinion. Once students have chosen their corner, ask students to explain why they agree or disagree and facilitate an informal debate. If you’re playing “Soapbox,” use your claim to begin a series of impromptu speeches from students.

3. Watch the movie until you reach a debatable moment. Pause the film and begin the “4 Corners” or “Soapbox” activities.

4. For “The Great Debaters,” some debatable moments are:

i. When Henry Lowe (Nate Parker’s character) steals the attention of Samantha Brooks (Jurnee Smollette’s character) from James Farmer Jr. (Denzel Whitaker’s character) after the debate team try outs: “It was wrong for him to swoop in and distract Samantha from James Jr.”

ii. When James Farmer Sr. (Forest Whitaker’s character) pays for the pig he hit with his car: “He should have refused to pay the farmer.”

iii. When Coach Tolson (Denzel Washington’s character) is being so aggressive in training the team (holding corks in their mouths, etc.): “Coach Tolson is working his students too hard.”

iv. Interesting and irrelevant side note: The young man in the film is played by an actor named Denzel Whitaker. Though no relation to male lead Forest Whitaker, he is in fact named after the other male lead Denzel Washington.

Practice Three: Introduction to Afghanistan

Goals

• Students will find debate to be a fun and welcoming activity

• Students will have an understanding of the basic structure of affirmative cases

• Students will have a basic understanding of the reasons for and against withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan.

Materials Needed

• A copy of the Afghanistan Affirmative and Negative Evidence to give to students.

• You might want to consider giving your students just the 1AC for the affirmative and 5-6 pages of negative evidence for the first tournament, rather than the entire file.

Activity 1 – Community Building

1. Again, have a couple varsity debaters join the activities for today (though not all of them—there should be a critical mass of new debaters, with experienced ones playing a minor role in discussions).

2. Again, go around the room and ask students to introduce themselves. When they’re doing this introduction, ask them to also mention what part of America they would like to change the most and why. You (the teacher) can start, perhaps throwing out an easy on like “I would put way more money into public education.”

3. Once this discussion is over, you can begin to introduce students to the idea of policy debate. Explain that it asks students to debate changing how the federal government does something, whether it’s help people out of poverty, protect the environment, or reduce wars with other countries. If you’ve got the interest, you can talk a little about how the US government actually changes policies, or at least who all the major players are in making policy (President, congress people, the Supreme Court, etc.). This last part may be a bit of a stretch for newcomers, so be ready to quickly abandon it if it’s not working well.

Activity 2 – Understanding & Responding to the Afghanistan Case

1. Pass out the outline of the Afghanistan Affirmative to the students (Handout 1).

2. Start with a very brief discussion about the origins of the war in Afghanistan. Don’t go too in-depth, as this can become unfocused and waste practice time. As you talk through the parts of the Afghanistan case, you can answer questions as they come up.

3. Go through the outline with students. First describe the plan, and then each of the stock issues. Briefly explain what each stock issue means and why it’s there, but again don’t dwell on these questions at first. The majority of your time should be spent making sure they understand the cause-effect relationship the case tries to describe. (In other words, how US troops might increase terrorism / the chance of Pakistan’s collapse and how removing them could stop those problems.)

4. Invite students to then brainstorm attacks against the affirmative case they might make if they were negative. Depending on the size of the group- you can do it as one big group or break the students up into smaller groups (with JV/Varsity helpers). Try to get them to think of attacks to all of the stock issues (while letting them figure out that inherency attacks are probably going to be less persuasive than those for harms or solvency). Write all of these up on the board.

5. Ask varsity debaters to pick the best arguments the novices came up with. You can give out candy or just verbal accolades as a prize.

6. At the end of practice, hand out a copy of the Afghanistan case. Explain that they will read it in the first speech of the debate and that while all the evidence may look intimidating, they now already understand all of the arguments behind it. Stress that the only evidence they really need to read in the affirmative packet is the 1AC, and they can pick a few pieces of evidence they like from the negative packet to read when they are negative.

Practice Four: Introduction to Korea

Goals

• Students will find debate to be a fun and welcoming activity

• Students will have an understanding of the basic structure of affirmative cases

• Students will have a basic understanding of the reasons for and against withdrawing our troops from South Korea.

Materials Needed

• A copy of the South Korea Affirmative and Negative Evidence to give to students.

• You might want to consider giving your students just the 1AC for the affirmative and 5-6 pages of negative evidence for the first tournament, rather than the entire file.

Activity 1 – Community Building

1. Again, have a couple varsity debaters join the activities for today (though not all of them—there should be a critical mass of new debaters, with experienced ones playing a minor role in discussions).

2. Again, go around the room and ask students to introduce themselves. When they’re doing this introduction, ask them to also mention what war in world history was the most important and why. They should have a decent reason for choosing what they do, so give them a few minutes to brainstorm. (If you don’t think they’ll be into the war activity, feel free to use your own introductory game.)

3. There’s a decent chance this icebreaker won’t transition into a discussion that’s applicable to the topic, but it’d be great to talk about some of the major causes of recent wars as well as what lead to their ending. This could provide some helpful analogies for your students when they are debating this year, but again, this discussion isn’t crucial to today’s lesson so don’t worry if the students don’t show much interest in a discussion.

Activity 2 – Understanding and Responding to the Korea Case

1. Pass out the outline of the Korea Affirmative to the students (Handout 2).

2. Start with a very brief discussion about the origins of our stationing troops in Korea. Don’t go too in-depth, as this can become unfocused and waste practice time. As you talk through the parts of the Korea case, you can answer questions as they come up.

3. Go through the outline with students. First describe the plan, and then each of the stock issues. Briefly remind students what each stock issue means and why it’s there, but again don’t dwell on these questions at first. The majority of your time should be spent making sure they understand the cause-effect relationship the case tries to describe. (In other words, how US troops might increase tensions with North Korea and how removing them could stop those problems.)

4. Invite students to then brainstorm attacks against the affirmative case they might make if they were negative. Depending on the size of the group- you can do it as one big group or break the students up into smaller groups (with JV/Varsity helpers). Try to get them to think of attacks to all of the stock issues. Write all of these up on the board.

5. Ask varsity debaters to pick the best arguments the novices came up with. You can give out candy or just verbal accolades as a prize.

6. At the end of practice, hand out a copy of the Korea case. Explain that they will read it in the first speech of the debate and that while all the evidence may look intimidating, they now already understand all of the arguments behind it. Stress that the only evidence they really need to read in the affirmative packet is the 1AC, and they can pick a few pieces of evidence they like from the negative packet to read when they are negative.

Handout 1 – Afghanistan Case Outline

Plan: The United States federal government should withdraw all forces pertaining to counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan.

Inherency: This part of the case explains what is going on right now. Here, it’s how many troops the United States currently has in Afghanistan and what those troops are doing.

• “The US is currently engaged in large counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and those will continue into the future.”

Harms: This part of the case explains the bad things that are happening in the world because of what’s going on right now. In other word, why having troops in Afghanistan is such a bad thing.

• “The US has no chance of winning in Afghanistan. What’s more, keeping troops there makes the locals hate the United States and more likely to join the Taliban or become terrorists. Even worse, Afghanistan is right next to Pakistan, and these new terrorist recruits are likely to spread into unstable Pakistan and collapse the government there. Because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, things could get really ugly really fast.”

Solvency: This part of the case explains why the Plan would stop all of the bad things happening right now (aka the Harms). Here, it explains how withdrawing troops would decrease terrorism and help Pakistan.

• “Removing our troops would immediately reduce support for the Taliban as there would be no more reason to join anti-American groups. Additionally, people would begin to support the current government in Afghanistan and this would make the whole region more stable.”

Handout 2 – Korea Case Outline

Plan: The United States federal government should withdraw its troop presence from South Korea.

Inherency: This part of the case explains what is going on right now. Here, it’s how many troops the United States currently has in South Korea and what those troops are doing.

• “Despite some talk, the US has no plans to withdraw its 28,000 troops from South Korea, and these troops aren’t even helping keep peace in the region.”

Harms: This part of the case explains the bad things that are happening in the world because of what’s going on right now. In other word, why having troops in South Korea is such a bad thing.

• “A war is brewing between the United States and North Korea because of the US troop presence in the South. North Korea is trying to bait the United States, and it’s going to succeed pretty soon. Since both sides have nuclear weapons, this war is going to look pretty catastrophic.”

Solvency: This part of the case explains why the Plan would stop all of the bad things happening right now (aka the Harms). Here, it explains how withdrawing troops would lead North Korea to agree to a peace deal and prevent war.

• “Removing our troops would from South Korea would make China more interested in negotiating a peace deal for Korea. As the most powerful country in the area, China is best positioned to make this happen, but they won’t become involved and get the North to get rid of its nuclear weapons as long as US troops are in the region.”

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Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey.

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