General Resources: 

• Make-Up speech for missed debates. 

• Rubric for Make-Up speech for missed debates. 

• Flow Sheet Make up--do this anytime you miss another team's debate

• Class Codes (Google Classroom, Turnitin.com)

• Debate Syllabus

First days of year:

• First Day Deck.  

• One-minute speech for days two and three. 

General public Speaking: 

• Simple, popular media list of key traits of good speaking (it's actually things to avoid)

• Body Language and public Speaking--short and playful. 4 min. 

• Body Language expert on exuding confidence. 14 min.  

• Stanford Business School on body language. (this is a grad-school, student presentation)

• Want to see Steve Jobs experiencing public speaking anxiety?

• A scan of an Arnold Schwarzenegger speech with tallies across the top--indicating how many times he practices. That's how many times you should practice any speeches you deliver. 

• Vinh Giang: rehearsal and tonal variety

• Vinh Giang: Tonal variety and projecting confidence

• Vinh Giang: Your vocal image

• Vinh Giang: Tonal variety for impact on memory

• Vinh Giang: Are you a soft-spoken person? 

Relevant Media

• How to Argue. Harvard negotiator Dan Shapiro.
  
  

The Units

3-week Boot camp: Debate and Rhetoric 

Study guide concepts and terms for week-5 test (Distributed August)

• Note, there's a slightly more difficult test for Debate veterans. Veteran test includes the same concepts, but more analysis is expected. 

Rhetoric in Debate  (Notes August)

Policy Introduction (Notes August)

Logical Fallacies Vocabulary list (Tests August)

• Test for first ten fallacies (Appeal to Force to Misleading statistic): Friday 

• Test for second ten fallacies: Friday 

Tonal Variety Slide Deck (Notes August)

• Tonal Variety Activity--Assignment

Cross-examination Deck (Notes August)

CX Youtube video. (12 min)

1 X 1 Intro debate Activity (August)

• Claims review deck

• Deductive and inductive reasoning Deck. 

• Flow-Cross-Clash activity 

• Reiterate and Refute Activity 

Practice Constructives & Practice Debate

Resolved: The U.S. Government Should Enact Substantial Criminal Justice Reform in Policing.

Use the example Constructives, and the PDF posted below to write your first Affirmative Constructive. 

Sample Affirmative Constructive

Sample Affirmative Constructive #2 (This one is very thorough--beyond an A+)

Sample Negative Constructive

Sample Negative Constructive #2  

Criminal Justice Reform Facts on File PDF (Use this PDF for all Practice Debate evidence)

How to write Constructives--and some best practices. 

Works Cited. Note that slides 11-12 show how to format "hanging indent" in Google Docs.  

Common Errors in Policy Debate Deck. 

Criminal Justice Reform Facts on File PDF

Practice Debate Schedule Period 1

Practice Debate Schedule Period 4

Introduction to Policy Unit

• Rubric for Policy Debate Round #1

• How to write Constructives--and some best practices. 

• Works Cited. Note that slides 11-12 show how to format "hanging indent" in Google Docs.  

  • • Sample Affirmative Constructive

    • Sample Affirmative Constructive #2 (This one is very thorough--beyond an A+)

    • Sample Negative Constructive

    • Sample Negative Constructive #2

    • Two v Two Debate structure

Policy Unit: 

Policy Unit Rubric

Flow Sheet Make up--do this anytime you miss another team's debate

Constructive Template: Affirmative

Constructive Template: Negative

Round One Policy Debates

• Period 1, Round one:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

• Period 4, Round one:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

Post-Round-one-Debate-lessons

• CX Youtube video. (12 min)

• Common Errors in Policy Debate Deck. 

• POST DEBATE NOTES): 

• Period 1, Round Two:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

• Period 4, Round Two:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

• Period 1, Round Three:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

• Period 4, Round Three:  (Debate dates, resolutions, and teams)

Round Two: Period . (These are schedules and teams)

Round Two: period   (These are schedules and teams)

Round Three: Period . (These are schedules and teams)

Round Three: period   (These are schedules and teams)

Round Four: Period --Final Exam

Round Four: Period --Final Exam

More on the options for the negative arguments. 

POST DEBATE NOTES)

Sample Constructives 

• Sample Affirmative Constructive

• Sample Affirmative Constructive #2 (This one is very thorough--beyond an A+)

• Sample Negative Constructive

• Sample Negative Constructive #2

Semester One Final

Values Debate Unit (January)

• Key Ideas for Values Debates

• Values debates: steps to building an argument

  • • Great Sample Values debate constructive preparation --Neg

    • Sample Values debate Constructive--Aff

    • Sample Values debate Constructive--Neg

    • Rubrics: Values Debates--starting with Values Round 1

    • Rhetorical Appeals in Semester 2 Debates. 

    • Works Cited. Note that slides 11-12 show how to format "hanging indent" in Google Docs.  

2 v 2 Values Format

3 v 3 Values Format

3 v 2 Values Format

2 v 3 Values Format 

Round One: Values Debate Period 1 

Round One: Values Debate Period 4

Round Two: Values Debate Period 1

Round Two: Values Debate Period 4

Round Three: Values Debate Period 1

Round Three: Values Debate Period 4

Parliamentary Debate 

2026 Resolution List

• Some "parli" moments in the British House of Commons (Parliament)

• Some more "Parli" moments in the House of Commons. 

  • • The House of Commons is the lower house and de facto primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. 

• Parliamentary Debate: Opening Slide Deck

• Parli Debate topics--examples and activity

• Building a Government (Aff) case in 20 minutes

• Building an Opposition (Neg) case in 20 minutes

• The Logical Fallacies for Points of Order

• Parliamentary Format--remember, this is loose and flexible

• Parli Rubric
  
  Parli Debates Round One, Period 1

Parli Debates Round One, Period 4

Parli Debates Round Two, Period 1

Parli Debates Round Two, Period 4

Parli Debates Round Three, Period 1

Parli Debates Round Three, Period 4

Mini Round--Extra credit debates for late May

• Final Exam Speeches 

• Rubric for Final Speech

Thinking about canceling your social media accounts? Good idea. 

• • Smartphones and social media are destroying children’s mental health (Evidence of the catastrophic effects now overwhelming). Financial Times.

  • Smartphone addiction linked with lower cognitive abilities...and worse psychological well-being. Psypost.org

  • Social Media addiction increases depression. Psypost.org

  • TikTok feeds teens a diet of darkness. Wall Street Journal. 

  • Instagram and TikTok undermine happiness. Fortune. 

  • Meta knows it causes depression among teen girls. Wall Street Journal. 

  • "Social media associated with a surge in cognitive distortions." PNAS.org. 

  • Social media use causes youth to lose up to one night of sleep weekly. Business Insider. 

    • Nightly sleep is key to student success. Carnegie Mellon University

  • Social media use linked to developing depression regardless of personality. Journal of Affective Disorders

  • Social media break improves mental health. journal Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking

  • Higher screen time is associated with higher odds of suicidal behaviors. ScienceDirect.

  • Knowledge about anxiety and about coping strategies for anxiety are lower in those who seek information on social media. PsyPost. 

• TikTok use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction. PsyPost. 

• It's bad for democracy The Atlantic. 

• Social Media Effects: Hijacking Democracy & Civility in Civic Engagement. National Library of Medicine.

• It's bad for democracy--University of Birmingham

• Russia and China Actively infiltrate Social Media communities to undermine Civic discourse in the US.  MIT Technology Review

• Foreign Governments Actively use American Social Media to Sow Discord and Weaken American Cohesiveness. Associated Press. 

• Social media undermines democracy by polarizing its users --NPR

• Social Media Platforms used to Sell and Distribute Fentanyl.  Science Direct. 

• Fentanyl Tainted Pills Bought on Social Media Cause Youth Drug Deaths to Soar. NY Times. 

• Our brains are no match for our technology. NY Times. 

• Social Media Algorithms exploit the human Brain's attraction to divisiveness. PNAS. 

• Social media feeds the sense that "everything is going haywire." The Atlantic. 

• Facebook/ Meta is used to facilitate genocides

• Meta used to incite genocides. NY Times. 

• Meta knows its platform is used to incite genocides. Forbes. 

• Meta dissolved team that discovers "potential harms to society" of its own products. Endgadget.

• Russia uses Meta and Twitter to target Americans. NY times

• Facbook/Meta knows that foreign hostile governments use their platforms to facilitate disinformation campaings targeted at Americans. Washington Post. 

• Surveillance capitalism. Harvard Business Review. 

• You're being manipulated. "Algorithms...have an out-sized impact on shaping individuals’ experience. Wired. 

• The Truth About Algorithms--they work for big tech, not for you.  Cathy O'Neil

Some notable articles and studies for students in this particular moment: 

• Jonathan Haidt on post-1995 Fragility  Jonathan Haidt is a psychlogist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business.

• The Algebra of Happiness. Scott Galloway. Professor at NYU Stern School of Business. 

• Colleges are not prohibitively competitive. Here's a list of admission GPAs for California Universities.

• Students with trauma are not more likely to be triggered when reading potentially disturbing content--study. PsyPost. 

• Trigger Warnings Fail to help, and may even harm. Association for psychological Science.  

• Study finds brain changes associated with ADHD remission...some with ADHD...repetitively engage in strategies that compensate for symptoms. Psypost.org. 

• Rest isn't best: Getting kids back to school sooner after a concussion can mean a faster recovery