Debate League

MSDA Debate League

Introduction: The purpose of the League is to provide debating competition outside of tournaments both at the junior and senior high levels. The League is part of the MSDA, not a separate organization. The rules here provide a basic framework but schools are free to modify them in any way that they wish to. For example a group of schools might wish to have 4 schools in a division rather than 3 or more a fewer teams per school. They should try to keep things simple so that hosting does not become a burden or very time consuming.

1. Structure: Debates in the League are arranged in divisions of three schools -- groups can be four or five if that works better for the schools involved. Schools can arrange their own groups of 3 or can contact the MSDA, who will put them in touch with 2 other schools interested in being in a division. The divisions can choose names if they wish to, for example the Riel Division, the Roblin Division, the Red Division or the Assiniboine Divisions. Ideally there should 2 two-person teams per school but it could work with 1 per school. Debates would take place according to a schedule like that for hockey or basketball teams, with debates in place of games. Debates between two schools would be hosted by the third school in the division, which would also provide judges. For example, for the first debate in a division with St. Mary’s. Acadia, and St. Paul’s, St. Mary’s would debate against St. Paul’s at 4 PM at Acadia. With 2 teams per school, debates could be arranged as two rounds on the same day, e.g. round 1- SMA1 vs SP1 and SMA2 v SP2, and then round 2 - SMA1 v SP2 and SMA2 v SP1 to reduce the number of days required and to get the most out of each session. There would be no need for judges’ briefings, etc., so both rounds could easily be completed in two hours. Roughly two weeks later, St. Paul’s would host Acadia against St. Mary’s. Then St. Mary’s would host St. Paul’s against Acadia. Each team would debate against all 4 teams from the other schools in their division, so each team would have 4 debates in the initial round robin, but if they wanted to they could have a second set of 4 debates for a total of 8 debates, which would still require events on just 6 days in total. This system could provide the opportunity for schools that were interested in something different to use open adjudication, single experienced judges, and perhaps win-loss since there would be 4 or 8 debates for each team, more than enough for win-loss to work well. If the division wanted to, they could use cross-ex instead of parliamentary, or could use different formats for the first and second sessions, e.g. parliamentary for first session and cross-ex for the second. There would not be a championship session involving the winners from each division, but just a winner in each division – the MSDA would be happy to provide trophies for any division that requests them. Each division can arrange things the way that suits them best. The system is very flexible, because each division can decide on its own style of debate, judging system, etc. A division might decide that they would allow substitutions on their teams from debate to debate because they feel that their students might have difficulty attending all of the debates, so 3 or 4 students might all be on 1 two-person team with only 2 of them debating at any one time – in effect, a team would have some people on the bench (World Schools does this with 5 person teams, 3 of whom take part in any one debate).

Goals of the league structure:

1 It allows debaters to get more experience without adding the burden of hosting additional tournaments.

2 Each session is relatively easy to host since the host only needs to provide judges for 2 rooms. Judging could be done by a single experienced judge or a panel; this is something that each division can decide for itself.

3 If win-loss and/or open adjudication were used, it would provide the students with a different debating experience from tournaments.

4 Unlike tournaments, even small schools can host since only two rooms are needed

5 To provide an opportunity for debating which is less intimidating for nervous or new debaters than a tournament would be.