Debate Team
Debate practice is every Friday from 3:30-5:30.
Contact Tony Santamaría (santamaria at mac.com) or Joel Foss (jfoss at hq.dir.ca.gov) if you are interested or have questions.
Debate topics for Chadwick on March 3
•The United States should adopt President Bush's proposed guest
worker program.
• The United States Constitution should be amended to establish a
mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices.
• Teachers should not use candy as rewards.
• Beauty pageants do more good than harm.
ARE files
Template ARE form. When you click on the link, you may get a page that looks like gobbly-gook. Go to the File menu at the top of yourcomputer screen as save it as ARE template.dot. If your computer wants to add something other that .dot to the end of the file name, let it and then remove it from the file once you have downloaded it. This is a Word stationary file. You can open it and start typing, but when you save it, it will tell you to give it a new name. The ARE tmplate.dot file itself cannot be changed and will always look the same every time you open it.
Quick links
• Debate dates for the '06-'07 school year
• Debate topics for the Campbell Hall debate
• NEW debate research sharing bulletin board. Get registered now! (Debaters and debate parents only)
Cambell Hall debate (11/18/06) topics research moderators
• Animals should not be used for entertainment [Prop.:
Samantha,
Opp.: Sanam]
• The US should eliminate its own weapons of mass destruction [Prop.:
Amaya, Opp.: Deenah]
• Drug companies
should not be allowed to advertise prescription drugs to
the general public [Prop.: Rebecca, Opp.:
Kate]
• LA County should ban transfats in restaurants [Prop.:
Nirali, Opp.: Alexine]
Research moderators should download both of these files:
- ARE form to
fill out [Word stationary files]
- Example of how to fill out the form.
2006-2007 debate dates
These are the debate dates, and other important events that are planned for now. Make sure to come back to the Debate page regularly in case there are any changes made.
| November 18* | Campbell Hall, Los Angeles |
| February 3 | Marlborough, Los Angeles |
| March 3 | Chadwick, Palos Verdes |
| April 21-22 | Claremont, Claremont McKenna College Final Debate Tournament |
Debate 2005-2006 information
Campbell Hall tournament topics
The Campbell Hall tournament will be on May 6th and the topics are:
• The US should set a timetable to pull its troops out of Iraq.
• Food aid does more harm than good.
• Parents should be held legally responsible for the actions of their
minor children.
•Californians should pass Proposition 82.
We're going to have to think about if, when and how we can get these topics ready. Have a great Spring break.
Claremont tournament topics
The Claremont tournament will be held on April 22. This is the Saturday just before school starts after Spring break. Because some of our debaters will most likely be on vacation, we first need to decide if we want to participate, then who can participate, and whether or not we want to meet and when we would meet during Spring break. Mr. Foss and I will be in contact with parents soon so that we can decide what we can do.
All participants in the tournament will debate five of the following topics (but we need to prepare for all six), and then the top two teams will engage in a public debate in front of all the participants on the final topic.
The topics for the April 22 tournament are:
• On balance, video games do more good than harm. (Great PBS show
link, The
Video Game Revolution: Eight Myths . . . Debunked AND,
lots more links at
this site for both sides)
• Pakistan is more an enemy than an ally of the United States. (Another
great PBS show link, The
US and Pakistan)
• Algebra should not be required for high school graduation. (And another
great PBS show link, Bob
Moses: Algebra as a Civil Right)
• The atomic bombing of Hiroshima was justified.
• Wal-Mart is good for America. (One more great PBS link, Frontline:
Is Wal-Mart Good or America?)
• The French government should permit students to wear visible religious
symbols in state schools (BBC News article: French
scarf ban comes into force, The Brooking Institution link: Veiled Meaning: The
French Law Banning Religious Symbols in Public Schools)
Do check out the lists of links to the algebra, Hiroshima, and scarf debates that are on the Middle School Public Debate Program (MSPDP) page.
When preparing for a debate topic it is a good idea to come up with a general proposition strategy and a list of proposition arguments, and an opposition strategy along with a list of opposition arguments. Once that is done, it helps to come up with a sheet that matches up the prop arguments with what the opposition needs to say to rebut those arguments. As an example, look at the following documents on Wireless eavesdropping:
Proposition
Opposition
Pro vs. Con.
Curtis Debate wrap-up
Our teams did exceptionally well at Curtis winning 4 of the 12 debates they participated in with all of our girls scoring very well on personal points. The range for personal points went from 100-106 points. Congratulations to all of the new team members for participating and winning some of the debates.
Kudos to the teams of Brianna-Sanam-Alexine and Amaya-Deenah-Nirali for each winning two of their four debates for the day! A special thanks to Deenah, who graciously ceded her position to allow Samantha to debate for the first time.
Of course we do want to improve on our results and we are hoping to continue work on the crux of debate: making strong arguments, listening to the opposing side's points and countering their points. We also hope to work on confidence building and public speaking skills to raise those personal points.
Kate Schuster, the Middle School Debate Program coordinator at Claremont College is also hoping to pay us a visit as soon as we can arrange a date to have her. We are certain that she will be very helpful to our daughters' continued improvement in debate.
Chadwick debate wrap-up
The Chadwick debate was a great experience for all who attended. Two of our four teams won one debate and two won two debates each. In total we won 6 of the 16 debates, improving on our 4 out of 12 debate wins at Curtis. But these results do not show the incredible improvement in the speaking skills and the debating skills of our girls.
Kudos to the team of Amaya Santamaría, Imani Smith, and Sonora Ortiz, and the team of Deenah Jarrar, Ségolenè Salameh, and Nirali Morari. Both of these teams won two of their four debates. Honarable mentions to the team of Adriana Foss, Rebecca Dizon and Kate Barkley, and the team of Brianna Merkley, Sanam Patel and Alexine Gallagher who each won a debate.
All of the parents who attended were pleased to see the progress our students demonstrated in the debates and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the time they spent watching the debates.
We received many admiring comments at the tournament from the other debate coaches about the level of parent participation at our daughters' event. If they had a prize for parent participation, we would have brought a trophy home.
In the end, everyone came home a winner! Congratulations to everyone!
Chadwick topics
The topics to be debated are:
• K-12 schools should ban junk food sales.
• Medical testing on animals does more good than harm (excellent link for the debate!).
• The United States should ban the death penalty. (nice link with great arguments for both the prop and the opp sides)
• Warrantless wiretaps make America safer (Proposition strategy, Opposition strategy, Pros and Cons
2004-2005 debate
Here's some info. about our first debate last year.