Summer Camp: Learn the Art of Debate and/or Winning a Class Debate!

The art of debate is fun and an important part of many classes in school and is an extra curricular activity. No matter if you are just wanting to improve debate skills, take part in speech and debate, preparing for student government speeches, and/or wishing to take part in Model UN, this course is for you. We will start with some lecture, readings, and video clips. Them the course will allow students to pick topics to research and write cases for and against these topics. We will then have the opportunity to practice debating by improving our skills.  
 
This course will provide the basics to learning "the how to" of debate and how improve our debate skills. The goal of this course is for students to learn the basics of debate and progress to becoming excellent at debate. This is a course for any students interested in classroom debate and/or if you are interested the extra curricular activity of speech and debate. The course will provide details on researching topics, writing cases both for and against a topic, and the communication style of debate. 

Course Schedule:
Lesson 1: Introductions Mr. G and students. Examine the different types of debate: Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Policy Debate, World Schools Debate, and Congress. 

Lesson 2: How to write in argumentative style for (affirmative) and against (negative) debate cases? Learn the art of great research. How to construct logical arguments? Staying away from fallacies. 

Lesson 3: As a group we will pick (via voting) our preferred format of debate and Mr. G will provide a resolution. As a class we will determine partners (if a partner debate) and sides of the debate (affirmative and negative).

Lesson 4: Work with students and/or groups on their case writing, logic, and argumentation. Firm up our cases.

Lesson 5 and 6: Students will debate. Students that are not debating and waiting for their turn will be judging the debates along with Mr. G.  

I have 16 plus years taking part in speech and debate from being a member on the high school debate team, as a coach, teaching specific debate classes, and using debates within my history and English classes. The goal of this course is to provide students with a foundation of the debate process, how to pick topics, how to research, how to write cases for and against a topic, how to present a debate case, how to take notes during a debate, how to refute an opponents case, and how to win the debate.