Debate prep for our first tournament

Great effort on our second topic: The District of Columbia should be the 51st State. 

As discussed we still have two more debates to prepare for ahead of our first tournament Saturday November 8

These are :

3. The electoral college should be abolished.
4. The Internet should be regulated by an international body.

To ensure we are ready for Saturday week I think we will need to do an extra class next week and am proposing Thursday after school at Westland (subject to Westland MS approval)

Could you prepare a flow sheet with a summary of the arguments for and against for both these topics for Wed and Thursday respectively.

The arguments just need to be in the first two columns and can be summarised with some good persuasive examples to back them up. (IE keep it short and simple --it does not need to be an essay !!)

Remember you only need three or four arguments for each side and that some times the "emotional" argument can win over the "important" argument !

Next week we want to work a bit more on our refutation, especially for the second and third speakers (recall: they say/we say/because/therefore)

You have some research materials in your Pocket folder for the electoral college topic plus you can link through to a neat summary of the pros and cons for the electoral college topic from this Chatterbox site  . I will put some more materials together for the Internet topic which can also be accessed through the web site at the list of topics in the right column. (As we progress we will get much better at quickly researching and breaking down topics into the key pro & con arguments. Two excellent tools are Google Notebook -- see the video at the bottom of the this Chatterbox home page -- and the Sort Fix search engine )

Finally as we discussed we need to know who is NOT a starter for next Saturday's tournament. Could you let me know by end of tomorrow if you can't make it . This will enable us to put the teams together and tell the DC Urban Debate league next Tuesday who is debating.

You all have made great progress in a short time and although some are naturally nervous about our first debate, you will feel so much more confident once you have your first debates under your belt. Most of our competitors are also beginners so many will be in the same situation as us. In any case for our teams it will be very much a training exercise, getting used to how tournaments work, what the judges are looking for, techniques for rebutting and best ways how to persuade people to your view. Having done one debate tournament I can guarantee the classes will be much more useful and fun . Hoping you can all make Saturday week.

Tom Burton