DaNaya Burnett: founding member of NOLA
Debate Team; freshman @ SIU-E
 Keyonte Cobb: founding member of NOLA Debate
Team; CDL Adjudicator of the Year; CDF Freedom
School Servant-Leader
 Vernessa Gipson, MSW: former 21st CCLC Director;
NOLA Debate Team founder and co-coach
 Charles Rosentel: head coach; Social Studies and
Composition teacher
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Participants will understand:
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the benefits of competitive academic debate.
 Social-emotional skill development
 Connection to learning standards
 Post-secondary readiness skills
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the basic format for policy debate.
strategies for implementing debate-related
activities.
how to organize a debate team and prepare for
tournaments.
how to provide other debate-related activities.
When programs or activities include a
competitive component, increased
engagement may also vary according to
how successful a student is at the activity
(Feldman & Matjasko, 2005).
 Adolescence is characterized by rewardseeking behavior (Galvan, 2010) and the
development of higher-level thinking and
reasoning skills (Sternberg & Downing, 1982).
 Programs that utilize these developing skills
may improve educational attainment via
increased school engagement.
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Primary finding from this study:
 Students who participated in the Chicago Debate League were
more likely to graduate from high school and less likely to drop out
than students who did not participate in debate. Debaters were
significantly more likely to graduate than non-debaters in every risk
group.
 Debate participation may be an effective tool for maintaining or
increasing school engagement even among students most at-risk for
dropping out of high school.
 Students who participated in debate had significantly higher scores
on all sections of the ACT after adjusting for demographic and risk
variables.
 Debaters were also more likely to reach the college-readiness
benchmark on the English, Reading, and Science sections of the
ACT even among at-risk students.
 More intense participation was associated with better academic
performance.
Anderson, S., & Mezuk, B., Participating in a policy debate program and academic achievement among atrisk adolescents in an urban public school district: 1997–2007, Journal of Adolescence (2012), doi:10.1016/
j.adolescence.2012.04.005
Today, 19 urban debate leagues provide
competitive policy debate programs to
high school and middle school students
across the United States, in school districts
where 87% of students are minority and 78%
are low income.
 Urban Debate Leagues have proven to
increase literacy scores by 25%, to improve
grade-point averages by 8 to 10%, to
achieve high school graduation rates of
nearly 100%, and to produce college
matriculation rates of 71 to 91%.
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The 2010 CCS aim to refocus literary education on
analysis and evaluation of non-fiction texts and
oral communication (i.e., listening, speaking, and
presenting) (Porter et al., 2011).
Appendix A, titled “The Special Place of Argument
in the Standards,” notes that the Common Core
places “particular emphasis on students’ ability to
write sound arguments on substantive issues, as this
ability is critical to college and career readiness.”
On face, competitive policy debate programs
appear to match well with many of the Englishlanguage arts and reading objectives outlined in
the CCS.
City demographics
 Consent decree
 School demographics
 Student performance (report card data)
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› AYP
› Graduation
rates
› Afterschool
participation
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Needed to provide academic
enrichment services in a
nontraditional format
› More than cooking, dance, and
sports
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Opportunity to travel out of the
community
› Motivation to join was NOT
academically based
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Opportunity to meet other
“minority” peers who are
academically talented
› They have to see to believe
In competitive academic debate (also
called “policy debate”), teams of 2 argue
for or against a resolution.
 The affirmative team presents a plan that
supports the resolution and the negative
team argues for the status quo.
 When debate teams arrive at tournaments,
they must be prepared for any possibility, as
they may argue either the affirmative or
negative and, by the end of each
tournament, will have argued both sides
multiple times.
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http://www.urbandebate.org/video_cps
now.shtml
Practice
 Research
 Discussion and
Dialogues
 Sparring
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Resolution
› Resolved: The United States federal
government should substantially increase
social services for persons living in poverty
in the United States.
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Cases
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Katrina
Single Stop
Dream Act
Housing Vouchers
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Resolution
› 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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Cases
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Afghanistan/Counter-Terrorism
Japan/Okinawa
South Korea/Ground Troops in ROK
Turkey/Tactical Nuclear Weapons
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Resolution
› Resolved: The United States federal
government should substantially increase
its exploration and/or development of
space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.
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Cases
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Lunar Mining
Space-Based Missile Defense
Space Colonization
China Cooperation
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Reading
Writing
Critical thinking
and questioning
Public speaking
Social-emotional
learning
Note taking
Teamwork
Advocacy
Storyteller is a game designed to help
students think on their feet, speak fluently,
use transitions and avoid verbalized pauses
(e.g. um, uh, like, you know).
 Roles
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› Storyteller: Tells ad-lib story according to words
the Wordsmith calls
› Wordsmith: Directs the story by calling out words
› Buzzer: Buzzes when Storyteller has verbalized
pause
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SPAR (SPontaneous ARgumentation) debating
introduces students to academic debate and helps
them refine argumentation skills they already possess
while motivating them to participate in debate.
Brainstorm resolutions
› Resolved: That all public schools should extend their school
day by at least 1 hour
› Resolved: That social media websites (including Facebook
and YouTube) should be allowed in school for educational
purposes
› Resolved: That the Internet has made people lazy and
stupid.
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Roles
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1A: Affirmative Case and Affirmative Closing Statement
2A: Affirmative Rebuttal
1N: Negative Case and Negative Closing Statement
2N: Negative Rebuttal
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The Case should consist of 3 main arguments,
distinct from each other, that are supported by
whatever reasoning (or "warrants"), evidence,
data, and analysis that you can devise.
The Rebuttal should be refutations of the
other team's Case and should include a pointby-point refutation of their 3 arguments.
The Closing Statement should be an extension
of the 1 or 2 strongest arguments from your
Constructive, with a final rebuttal of your
opponent's arguments, concise and
synthesized.
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Affirmative Constructive (1A): 2.5 minutes
Negative Constructive (1N): 2.5 minutes
Negative Rebuttal (2N): 2.5 minutes
Affirmative Rebuttal (2A): 2.5 minutes
Negative Closing Statement (1N): 2 minutes
Affirmative Closing Statement (1A): 2
minutes
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Recruitment
› Members
› Coach

Support
› Time
› Resources
100% graduation rate
 100% college enrollment
 DaNaya’s scholarship accomplishment
 Keyonte’s award and speech
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What questions do you have?
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Multiple relevant links are posted here:
http://wp.me/p3ylC-Lf