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[Drama Llama]

. . .

Edited October 27, 2021 by BaseballandHockey

[Lecka]

For a middle school — the drama teacher is very possibly also the speech/debate teacher.  
 

If there is a “speech and drama” type of class for middle school, that is a class that might have some introduction to debate.

Or it might be an English or Journalism teacher.  It will just depend.

It may be a class or it may only be a club.

Lincoln/Douglas is one of the types of debate.  You can see the Wikipedia page for it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln–Douglas_debate_format

You also hear speech and debate called forensics.  
 

I don’t know a lot about it — I was a timekeeper for a tournament my high school hosted and had friends in it — but I did not do it myself.  
 

But that is what I know about getting into it.

Edit:  this is the kind of stuff I think someone would know, who didn’t know a lot about it but went to a US high school.  

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Lecka

[Lori D.]

I don't know about elementary/middle school, but there are a number of Debate teams/clubs at local/state/national levels in high school:

* National Speech & Debate Association -- secular
National Forensics League -- secular
National Catholic Forensics League -- Catholic
STOA -- Christian Homeschool Speech and Debate

Also, students can participate is the specific form of legislative bill debate (probably similar to your Canadian parliamentary debate) in the secular YMCA program of Youth & Gov't / Youth in Gov't (pronoun in the name of the program depends on whether you're east/west of the Mississippi 😉 ). There is also the Christian Teen PACT legislative program that teaches the legislative process, which I believe has a very small amount of legislative debate as part of the process.

Or, there is judicial/courtroom "argument" in the high school program of Mock Trial.


* ETA = looks like the National Speech & Debate Association has a Middle School competition as well

Also, here is a quick description of what high school Speech & Debate entails:

"Speech and Debate is a combination of public speaking, acting, and arguing all in one competitive sport...There are three “tracks” that students can take: Speech, Oral Interpretation, and Debate. In Speech competitors craft a persuasive and/or informative speech and then present it to a series of judges. Dependent on the specific event these speeches are either written on the spot or carefully curated over the year. In the Oral Interpretation events competitors take pieces of literature and poetry and present their interpretation of them in a 10-minute scene either by themselves or with a partner. In Debate students work as a team to prove their side of an argument against another team from a different school."

Edited August 28, 2021 by Lori D.

[Lecka]

https://www.whsfa.org/learn-to-debate/
 

This is from Wisconsin — but definitely looks like what my friends did and what I saw at the debate tournament where I was a timekeeper.

I also would hang around at lunch in my English teacher’s classroom, and she was one of the debate sponsors, and I would see people practicing for debates and for their speech monologues and things.  

[Lecka]

Here the debate kids also like Model United Nations.  

[Dmmetler]

I lettered in high school and college forensics, back in the dark ages, due to the intervention of an English teacher who realized I was actually good at interpretive reading when I had time to prepare (part of my IEP at the time was that I had to have advance notice and time to prepare anything that required reading out loud with the SLP, so I always had a set section or part that I KNEW I would be called on for, and as a result, I tended to read with a lot more expression since I wasn’t doing it cold-my SLP was all for it and got it written into the IEP because it gave me practice talking in front of people, but in a form I could handle. In college, I basically won my spot on the team by being there, being hard working, and being willing to help, even though my scores were never terribly high-usually I’d be thrilled to crack the top half). So, I never did debate myself, but was on the sidelines for it and timed a lot of practice matches. 
 

At the time, high school competitive debate had a series of known topics that you would prepare for in the different rounds. Your team had to be researched and ready to take any side, and to rebut whatever argument was given. You had set X minute rounds, with declining maximum time for rebuttals, in the public forum style linked above.  It was scored by a team of judges based on who presented their points more clearly and concisely and who responded to the other’s points better. The top scoring teams at regionals went on to state, etc.  In college, there were also speed rounds-you got a topic, 30 minutes to prepare, and then debated it, and switch sides, where you had to debate one side, and then, midway through, switch sides, essentially having to rebut your prior arguments. I imagine this looks a lot different now, but at the time, debate traveled with file boxes for literally any topic that we thought might come up, and if you weren’t competing right then, you were likely to be called into service to help pull articles and suggest points. (I suspect that the primary thing that kept me on the list to actually compete in OI was that I was really, really good at skimming articles fast and pulling out some key talking points to use.)
 

I loved Forensics-and I credit a lot of my ability to give talks at conferences, teach college classes, and generally communicate professionally at all to that English teacher who recognized that this was a good thing for me to do, and my speech therapist who got it on the IEP so even when someone else took over coaching who was more score focused, they HAD to keep me on the team. 

[Lecka]

https://www.speechanddebate.org/topics/
 

This looks like it is current topics.  

I can still remember that topics from when I was in high school were about euthanasia and something about nuclear non-proliferation.  I think….. 

 

The popular monologue for my age was a Samuel L Jackson monologue from Pulp Fiction 😕

[Dmmetler]

Here’s the college National org. https://pkd.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=0&club_id=842372.

[Cordelia]

I participated in NCFCA in high school, and it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. It's a Christian homeschool speech and debate league. I still volunteer to judge when they have tournaments in my area. 

 

ncfca.org

[Drama Llama]

. . .

Edited October 27, 2021 by BaseballandHockey

[kirstenhill]

I have a rising freshman who wants to do debate.  I learned that our state offers 4 debate formats (that can all advance to a state-level competition) and they will each have different topics: policy debate (teams of 2), Lincoln-Douglas debate (individual), Congressional (individual - they are debating on a proposed law), and public forum debate (teams of 2 again, but the topic changes...monthly, I think).  So there may be multiple topic options if the school competes in more than one format.

 

 

[MooCow]

It's best to argue for the side you don't believe in. 

[Lecka]

Not everybody has to do a lot of research.  
 

Especially if it is a class — I think it can be more like a big group project and there can be time spent learning about a topic in different ways.  
 

A teacher can know things that a student would find interesting, and bring those things up.

 

If there is a class — I think it can be set up to learn, and to prepare a debate.

 

But it doesn’t mean everyone is going to prepare for tournaments or competitions.  
 

Also with tournaments — I think if someone is new or a team is new, they are doing good to go out and do their best.  
 

Some people will go to one tournament if it’s required, or not go to any.  
 

It’s something where someone can get a lot out of it, without competing at a high level.  
 

Not very many people from my high school were state qualifiers etc.  

 

To compare with track (my niece ran track recently) a lot of people can participate and try to meet individual goals, and then a few people will be trying to go to state meets.

 

For the people trying to go to a state meet — that is a huge focus.

 

But it will not be everyone’s focus and it’s not expected to be everyone’s focus.  
 

When I was a timekeeper my memory is that I would sit in a classroom and there would usually just be a judge and 2-4 students in the room, and very spread out.  
 

Also for our school’s tournament, there were not necessarily a lot of students coming from other schools.  But the debate teacher could want students to participate at our tournament even if they wouldn’t go to another school’s tournament.  
 

I think for middle school they may just have practice debates too, and not go to tournaments.  I don’t think they have middle school tournaments where I live.  

[Cordelia]

10 hours ago, BaseballandHockey said:

Thanks everyone!

It's an extracurricular offered at his school.  Covid-wise, I figure an activity that's at his school which is small and has lots of covid precautions, is as safe as it's going to get.  So, if he wants to try, I'll let him.  I don't know if I'd let him compete just due to the covid risk of traveling to other schools etc . . . 

I am curious if he'll like it.  On one hand, he certainly likes to talk and argue.  And he likes being on a team and winning.  On the other hand, while he reads well he doesn't read for pleasure, other than recipes.  So, I'm not sure I can imagine him choosing to research NATO's commitments in the Baltic states.  

 

A lot of kids I knew weren't necessarily big readers before they started debate, but then their competitive instincts kicked in, and they magically got quite interested in the trade policies of Russia or some other niche topic. 

[TravelingChris]

I lettered in debate in high school in VA.  Then many years later, I judged debates and speech while homeschooling in VA and one time here in AL.  My dd1 also did debate in home school high school,

Most debate in high school in the US is two kids v two kids with one side presenting a case and the other side trying to knock it down.  My dd1 was so very good and super, super quick at writing briefs that I wasn't surprised at all when she became a text editor and more specifically also is super good at transcribing meetings even when everyone is on the phone.

I know that debate really helped me and speech and debate really helped my 2dds too.

[vonfirmath]

On 8/28/2021 at 5:33 PM, BaseballandHockey said:

I did parliamentary debate in my Canadian high school but was always under the impression that American debate is very different.  

My sixth grader was delighted to learn that “arguing” could be an extracurricular so I guess I should learn about it.  What can you tell me? 

When I was in middle school, the speech teacher did the UIL events -- which included extemperaneous speaking and debate

 

For UIL debate there was a yearly topic and you researched BOTH sides of the topic because you don't know which side you will need to argue at competition until you get there. It is expected you can argue both sides and have rebuttal points for whichever side you are arguing against.