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Spring '07:
Resolved - All persons having entered the country illegally should be required to return to his/her country of origin and apply for lawful entry before being allowed to establish permanent US residency and/or citizenship.
Team Policy Debate
Team policy debate is the oldest, and still probably the most popular, format of debate practiced in American high schools. The proposition side is called the Affirmative or Aff, and the opposition side is called the Negative or Neg. Each side is a team composed of two debaters (We will use 4), so that there are four (8) people participating in the debate (not including the judge and audience).
Format. A round of team policy debate consists of eight speeches. The first four speeches are called constructive speeches, because the teams are perceived as laying out their most important arguments during these speeches. The last four speeches are called rebuttals, because the teams are expected to extend and apply arguments that have already been made, rather than make new arguments. Here is a table of the eight speeches and their time limits:
Speech:
1AC 1NC 3min.
2AC 2NC 3min.
1NR 1AR 2min.
2NR 2AR 2min.
Each constructive speech will be followed by a 30 second response period from the opposing side.
(A stands for Affirmative, N for Negative, C for Constructive, R for Rebuttal.)
Two things are of interest in this structure. First, the affirmative team both begins and ends the debate. Second, the negative team has two speeches in a row: the first negative rebuttal (1NR) immediately follows the second negative constructive (2NC). (Why? Well, because it's always been done that way.)
In general, the members of each team alternate giving speeches, so that the same person gives both the 1AC and the 1AR, the same person gives the 2NC and the 2NR, etc. Occasionally, the rules will allow a change in this format. For example, affirmative teams will sometimes go "inside-outside" so that one person (usually the weaker member) gives the 1AC and the 2AR, while the other (stronger) debater gives the 2AC and the 1AR.
Resolutions in team policy debate are always of a policy nature, usually governmental policy. The affirmative team almost always defends the resolution by means of a particular example, known as a "case"; if they can show the example (case) to be true, then the general proposition is also shown to be true. For instance, the first resolution I ever encountered in team policy debate was, "The federal government should adopt a comprehensive, long-term agricultural policy in the United States." Some typical cases teams ran under this resolution were: that the government should institute a program restricting the use of pesticides; that the government should institute a program to insure genetic diversity of crops; that the government should institute a program requiring farmers to switch from land-farming to hydroponics (i.e., growing food in great big tanks of water); that the government should abolish crop subsidies and price supports; etc.
Style.
***Team policy debate is focused on evidence gathering and organizational ability. Persuasiveness is not considered important -- or at least, not as important as covering ground and reading plenty of evidence. The best teams have huge fileboxes packed to the gills with evidence on their own affirmative case and all the possible cases they might have to oppose. If you ever walk into a high-level team debate round, expect to see debaters talking at extremely high speeds, reading out the contents of page after page of evidence, gasping for breath between points, and using lots of jargon ("I cite Jorgenson, Jorgenson post-dates Bronstein, that kills PMR 4, flow that Aff!"). There is very little discussion of values such as freedom, justice, equality, etc.; usually, the ultimate criterion on any issue is how many dead bodies will result from taking or not taking a particular action. This form of debate can be fun, it encourages good research and organizational skills, and it is good for getting novice debaters used to speaking in front of people. But if you want to learn how to speak persuasively, this form of debate is not for you.
Source:
Whitman, Glen. "Debate Formats." Glen Whitman's Debate Page. 5 Sept. 2002. California State University Northridge. 11 Dec. 2006.
(http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/debformats.html)
***KEEP IN MIND*** - Very talented politicians, lawyers and scholars are currently arguing both sides of this debate. Don't reinvent the wheel, but study their respective arguments in detail. TAKE NOTES AND COLLECT EVIDENCE!!!!!
GRADES:
I will be grading the class rounds utilizing the rubric located at http://www.winona.edu/air/documents/DebateRubric.doc.
Judging the winning team will be on a round by round point system. The better presenter of each round will gain one point for the team. In the event of a tie, scoring will go to most effective use of overall time alloted.
Class Winner - 3 pts. on quarter grade
Semi-Final Winner - 5 pts. on quarter grade
Winner - 7 pts. on quarter grade