About

Why Summer Debate Camp?

Debate camp helps you to retain and refine the skills that you have worked on over the debate season. You spend almost 12 weeks straight without any exposure to speech and debate without summer camp!

Debate camp helps you form connections to other debaters. You can receive the opportunity to meet new debaters and work with new instructors who care about your growth in speech and debate!

Debate camp allows you to explore rhetoric and argumentation at an advanced level.
- Workshops help each debater refine their speaking and research skills
- Drills and conversation in small lab settings allow students to learn about new strategies and approaches to debate
- Daily practice and feedback means extremely hands-on, focused, and personalized coaching

Why Jumpstart?

Parliamentary Focus:

1. We are one of the only camps that exclusively focus on parliamentary debate in Central Jersey and Tri-State Area

2. Many other camps advertise Lincoln-Douglas and general debate, but what we offer is uniquely applicable to MSPDP/HSPDP/general parliamentary formats

Good Value:

1. Low cost compared to other camps (thousands of dollars)

2. Experienced instructors

3. Good student to instructor ratio

Good balance:

1.Individualized feedback with demanding instructors

2. Informal, casual, fun setting

Virtual Camp!

Due to the recent situation with COVID-19, Jumpstart Debate Camp is now fully online this year! We plan to preserve every aspect of our original curriculum through the following elements:

1. Self-paced Video Lectures

2. Interactive Drills & Assignments

3. Instructor-led Office Hours

4. Live Debates with Feedback

We will be utilizing platforms like Zoom and Google Classroom to ensure every debater's experience is smooth, fulfilling, and tailored to individual needs.

Email us or sign up for our mailing list to stay updated. Sample daily schedules and more details will be released soon!

Our CURRICULUM

Our curriculum is designed with five key elements in order to optimize each debater's progress throughout the week.

Workshops Series

Students will listen and participate in workshops based on their skill level. Workshop topics cover everything from basic argument construction and heckling strategies to fluency in delivery and advanced refutation strategies. Workshops will allow students to grasp the fundamental components of a debate round.

Drills Series

Drills are strategically placed after a workshop or a set of workshops to hone specific skills. Students will be able to work in partners or in a group to focus on an aspect of the debate.

Speech Redos

Speech redos are one of the most underrated parts of debate instruction and one of the most effective methods to actively improve in your speaking. After select debate rounds, instructors will work with students one-on-one to fix elements of their speaking and argumentation. This actively reinforces the feedback they were given.

Practice Debates

In the afternoon, students will be able to directly apply the skills they learned in their morning workshops and drills in two practice debates. Students will have the opportunity to debate with cases they researched themselves as well as prepared case material. Personalized and detailed feedback.

Evaluation packet

Each debater will receive an evaluation packet at the end of the week that will document their progress made and provide useful feedback for the future. highlighting the different areas of argumentation, strategy and rhetoric that they excelled in and can improve on. Packets will include individualized comments from practice debates.

Testimonials

"I really liked how both Felicity and Emmanuel were both willing to help the debaters, whether in their refuting, weighing, or flowing. They wanted to help, and they really cared about our performance"

- Maria, 7th Grade

"I feel like I gained more confidence and improved my grasp of debating"

- Anneka, 8th Grade

"I improved on the flow"

- Dorothy, 7th Grade

"Before I went to the camp, I had never gotten more than 2 wins in a debate tournament (out of 4 rounds). The first tournament after the camp, I won all 4 rounds on a two-person team, going twice every round"