Goals: To familiarize students with the idea of making arguments, asking
questions, and judging the strength of competing arguments.
Method: List a number of common, easily debatable topics on the board.
Have two students come to the front of the room. After a coin toss, the
winning student selects either the topic (then their opponent selects the
side: affirmative or negative) or selects the side (then their opponent
selects the topic). Both debaters receive five minutes to prepare. Then a
very quick debate occurs: Affirmative opening speech (90 seconds), crossexamination (60 seconds), negative opening speech (90 seconds), crossexamination (60 seconds), affirmative closing (45 seconds), negative
closing (45 seconds). To keep the exercise running quickly, two students
can be preparing while another two are debating. The debate lasts about
as long as the preparation time. Following the debates the class and the
instructor can take the opportunity to discuss strong arguments, strategies,
and goals to work on for the future. In addition, given the very-short
speaking times, the instructor can also point out the importance of
selecting the best arguments and stating them concisely. Some possible
topics for spar debates include: Honesty is always the best policy, slavery
still exists, education is key to success, violence is sometimes necessary,
animals think like humans, school starts too early, city life is better than
country life, and should one obey authority.
Goals: To acquaint students with the use of dictionaries as a means of
clarifying the debate.
Method: If you have access to several dictionaries, pick one resolution and
challenge the students to find as many different definitions as possible.
Have students present their definitions to the class and give 'awards' for
several categories: most reasonable, most unexpected but still
reasonable, most distorted, most useless, etcetera. The instructor may
also want to stage a mini-debate on definitions by having two students
argue over which definition is more reasonable. The goal in such a debate
would be to emphasize that students should give brief, clear reasons why
their definition would lead to better debate, and to emphasize that such a
definitional dispute would never characterize an entire debate, but may
characterize a moment in a debate.
Goals: To provide students with a way to practice flowing and learn about
current events at the same time.
Method: Have students take notes on the evening news (television or
radio) just as they would flow a debate. Each story is noted as a new
numbered argument. The student tries to write down 1. a title for the story
(e.g., 'U.S.A. finally pays its UN dues') 2. Some salient facts about the
story (e.g., $6.5 billion was owed, etc.) and 3. Any people who were
quoted in the story (e.g., Madeline Albright). This simple exercise provide
very realistic practice on a daily basis, and the current events which the
student learns will be quite useful in debates as well.
Goals: To develop skills in quick thinking, to understand refutation and
extention.
Method: Students stand in a circle, you throw a ball to one. Ther person
who catches the ball makes an argument (you can limit the subject, or
leave it open) and throws the ball to another person. The person who
catches the ball must either 1.) Refute the argument (give reasons why it
isn t true), or 2.) Extend the argument (providing new and different
reasons why it is true). The game continues. If a player is uncertain how
to answer, or if you have stayed too long on one issue, then there is
another option: 3.) Make a new argument on a different issue.
Goals: To emphasize skills in refutation, as well as rebuttal.
Method: Have each student write on the top of a piece of paper one
position which they are willing to defend. Pass all of the papers around the
room and have each person list a reason against that argument as quickly
as possible. When all papers are returned to the original students, give
them 10 minutes to prepare responses to the arguments which have been
written against their own original argument. Students are encouraged to
group similar answers together and answer them at once. Finally, the
instructor has each student refute as many arguments to their position as
they can in 5 minutes.