Debate Club
I will begin to post information and updates about the Debate Club on this website. Please feel free to check in and see what we are doing each week.
Tuesday, 12/15 - The students had their final session to work together and I think they are ready for Thursday's debate. Everyone received their shirts and they can wear them whenever they want... they just need to make sure they wear them this Thursday at 7:00PM.
The debate will take place in the Multipurpose Room at Bradford at 7:00PM on Thursday - 12/18. The students should arrive a few minutes early.
The debate will take place in the Multipurpose Room at Bradford at 7:00PM on Thursday - 12/18. The students should arrive a few minutes early.
Tuesday, 12/8 - We have an update on dates... Next Tuesday (12/16), we will have a class. There will be two dismissal times... 4:05 and 4:30. Let your child know which time they should leave. Thursday (12/18) will be the final debate and begin at 7:00PM in the gym/auditorium. The students should arrive about 10 minutes early. The order will be random and the whole debate should take about an hour. Not that anyone would do this, but please remain to the final group has debated. Good luck!!!
Tuesday, 12/1 - Good progress is being made and we should be ready for some timed rehearsals next week.
Tuesday, 11/25 - The debaters spent most of the class today working on their strategies, researching and writing. Each of the six groups are building a real sense of team and looking forward to the debating.
Tuesday, 11/18 - Since this is a student driven activity, the students picked the resolutions that they would debate. Last week, the students came up all the topics and today, they each picked their top four choices. While the students started to work with their teams (figuring out their roles), I quickly tallied up the sheets. The top three vote getting topics were written on slips of paper and the person working on the "introduction" picked a slip from a cup. A coin was flipped to see if they would be the"pro" or "con". Here are the topics that the groups will be researching at home and working on in class...
- Should rock climbing be an Olympic sport?
- Should every student get a laptop from their school?
- Should animals be used for testing?
Tuesday, 11/11 - The class was randomly broken into two teams. Each team has three groups, so we will have three rounds of debates. I will have the final debate date on 11/25 and the let the students in class that day. I will post the date on this site also.
Tuesday, 10/28, The students that had homework, did a great job presenting and the class did a good job off coming up with rebuttals. We started a smaller group debate and will finish that next week. The group will be split up for more practice and soon will start talking about our final debate topics.
Tuesday, 10/21, Refutation. New word, but the students weren't scared. It is a fancy way of saying rebuttal. We learned about the four parts of refutation in class today...
Step 1: "They say..."
Step 2: "But..."
Step 3: "Because..."
Step 4: "Therefore..."
The students practice talking notes from a Proposition (Presentation) and than worked on refuting one of the points. Lots of students got up and shared... with good loud voices.
There is homework that needs to be completed before next Tuesdays class... Use the "ARE" format to write a proposition and be ready to debate the topic.
Step 1: "They say..."
Step 2: "But..."
Step 3: "Because..."
Step 4: "Therefore..."
The students practice talking notes from a Proposition (Presentation) and than worked on refuting one of the points. Lots of students got up and shared... with good loud voices.
There is homework that needs to be completed before next Tuesdays class... Use the "ARE" format to write a proposition and be ready to debate the topic.
Tuesday, 10/14, After a few minutes to have a snack and talking, we started this weeks lesson by discussing the "ARE" of debate (Propositions).
A - Assertion
R - Reasoning
E - Evidence
We than did an exercise to help understand how to use these. We talked about how to take notes for a debate (closely follows the methods we use in 4th and 5th grade Science - Cornell Method) and than went into some quick impromptu debates to put it to use. The students did a really good job! We are on our way...
A - Assertion
R - Reasoning
E - Evidence
We than did an exercise to help understand how to use these. We talked about how to take notes for a debate (closely follows the methods we use in 4th and 5th grade Science - Cornell Method) and than went into some quick impromptu debates to put it to use. The students did a really good job! We are on our way...
Tuesday, 10/7, Today we began the journey of becoming debaters. If the students put in the effort, I think the parents are going to have a problem next time their child wants something... they will come prepared and ready to debate why they should have what they want... sorry about that :)
This class was about getting to know each other and speaking in front of a large group. Everyone stood up and told the class something unique about themselves (or something that nobody knows about them). I went first and said that I can juggle and play Clash of Clans (a little embarrassing).
We talked about what debate is and what it isn't. Than we proceeded to break into groups and try same basic debating.
This class was about getting to know each other and speaking in front of a large group. Everyone stood up and told the class something unique about themselves (or something that nobody knows about them). I went first and said that I can juggle and play Clash of Clans (a little embarrassing).
We talked about what debate is and what it isn't. Than we proceeded to break into groups and try same basic debating.
