“Winter Break Skills Boost” is a fun and effective way for students to maintain and refine their debate and public speaking skills during the holiday break. By introducing engaging activities in class during these last few weeks before break, students will get a foundation to integrate skill-building into their downtime.
“Mastering Word Economy” is an engaging and practical activity designed to help students refine their ability to present arguments succinctly. This resource guides students through the process of condensing a one-minute argument progressively into shorter segments—45 seconds, 30 seconds, and finally a 10-second summary. By recording themselves and reviewing their performances, students can observe how they adapt their delivery and focus as the available time decreases, enhancing their skills in word economy and persuasive clarity.
As the debate season progresses towards its culmination, it’s vital for students to reflect on their experiences, learn from their performance in past tournaments, and set targeted goals for improvement. This resource guides students through a structured reflection process on their debate rounds so far, encouraging them to identify areas for growth and develop a focused plan for enhancement as they approach the final tournaments of the school year.
“Ethical Debate Forum” is an interactive forum activity designed for Lincoln-Douglas (LD) debate students. This resource aims to engage students in deep ethical discussions, challenging them to articulate and defend their positions on complex issues. Through exploring ethical dilemmas, students will enhance their critical thinking, moral reasoning, and argumentation skills—essential components of successful LD debate.
“Gesture Mapping” is an interactive activity designed to help students integrate natural and effective gestures into their speech delivery. By annotating a famous speech for gesture cues and practicing these gestures, students can enhance their nonverbal communication skills, which are vital for impactful public speaking.
The start of a new year is an ideal time for students to set specific, achievable goals for their growth in speech and debate. This activity guides students in establishing clear, measurable objectives and developing a task-oriented action plan to reach these goals. It emphasizes the importance of thoughtful goal-setting as a foundation for success and improvement.
Winter break provides a unique opportunity for students to independently maintain and enhance their speech and debate skills. This guide offers practical suggestions that teachers can share with their students, ensuring continuous skill development even when school is not in session.
This self-reflection activity, designed for debate or public speaking students, focuses on the practice and review of speaking skills. The activity is particularly suitable to assign before the winter holiday break, as it provides students with an opportunity to independently practice and assess their skills while away from school. This exercise encourages self-analysis and helps students identify areas for improvement.
Every time a new topic is announced, students need to restart the process of understanding the topic area and generating arguments. This resource provides a structured approach for debate teams to effectively navigate the initial phases of topic preparation. This guide is designed to help debaters build a solid foundation of knowledge and perspective on new debate topics.
“Impact Weighing Showdown” is a structured debate activity designed to sharpen students’ skills in weighing the impacts of various arguments against each other. By focusing on key criteria such as magnitude, probability, scope, and timeframe, students will learn to evaluate and compare the potential outcomes of different arguments, a critical skill in advanced debate.
