Welcome to week 1 of The Great Debate's introduction to Lincoln-Douglas Value Debate. Today's lesson is entitled "What is Debate?" This lecture gives you a brief overview of the game we know as competitive debate. Debate has long been part of a "well-rounded" education and debates have been instrumental in shaping the direction of many nations. The famous "Lincoln-Douglas Debates" thrust Abraham Lincoln onto the American stage as an advocate for maintaining the Union and eventually led to his election as President of the United States.
Debates take many forms, but competitive debate is a formal style of debate with specific topics, time limits, and conventions. While there are many styles of formal competitive debate, the goal remains the same: training students to engage interesting ideas with cogent arguments and strong rhetorical skill. If you are interested in pursuing debate competitively, I would strongly recommend you look at the various debate leagues available to you. For high school students, there are the National Forensics League (NFL), the National Catholic Forensics League (NCFL), the Urban Debate League (UDL), the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association (NCFCA), the National Home School Leage (STOA), University Interscolastic League (UIL), and the National Debate Coaches Association (NDCA). There are also a number of state leageus and smaller regional debate leagues. Links to each of these leagues may be found on The Great Debate website.
This week's lesson is available on the Great Debate's youtube page. It is also available on the Great Debate website in embedded format. Finally, you can see the video right here:
If you haven't already, be sure to visit The Great Debate website to request your free packet of outlines. If you are a student, you can request the student packet and coaches can request a coach packet with additional resources including a syllabus and answer keys.
As a drill to see if you understand what we're doing here, try your very first formal debate in a "fun debate" style. Pick a topic like "Resolved: (My school)__________ should have a less strict dress code." or "Resolved: Cats are better pets than Dogs." Divide into two teams, an affirmative and a negative. Write down the top 10 reasons for you position. Take 5 minutes to collaborate with your teammates and make sure you each have at least 3-5 good reasons so the debate can last for a little while. It is now time to begin the debate. The affirmative team will go first, one speaker will provide 2 reasons in favor of the resolution. The negative team will send their first speaker to provide 2 reasons against the resolution and respond to one of the arguments from the affirmative. The affirmative sends their second speaker to provide two new reasons and respond to the arguments of the negative. The debate continues for roughly 15 minutes or until you are all satisfied with how you have represented your positions. Congratulations! You have just had your first formal debate round - it wasn't so bad was it?!
After you watch the video, be sure you download Coach Marko Djuranovic's Ultimate LD Handbook. Read pages 5-7; 13-15; and 34-40 before next week's lecture.
Finally, as homework, read the current resolution for your league. If you are unsure your league, take some time this week to look around at the various organizations and see what they have available in your area. Once you find the league you'll join, read their resolution and think about it without any research. What is your initial reaction to the resolution? Do you support it (affirm)? Do you reject it (negate)? Pick the side you are on and write down the first 3 reasons that come to your mind for that side. Put this away and we'll get it out again later in the year to see if your opinion has changed!
Have a great week and we'll see you next week for our second debate lesson, "What is an Argument?"
If you are interested in learning a form of debate other than Lincoln-Douglas value debate, The Great Debate is a wonderful textbook for policy debate written by the teacher in these videos. The Great Debate provides training in the basics of debate and includes information for debaters who have already learned the fundamentals and are looking for more intermediate level training. The Great Debate has a teacher's guide (coming soon) which includes lesson plans and additional material for coaches. For more information about The Great Debate, visit our website. We also have produced a video training series for Public Forum Debate. The public forum series is another free resource from The Great Debate
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