Learning the Speaker Positions with Sam and Ciera

Government and Opposition Member Speeches:

My favorite speeches are member speeches! They are so much fun! The member speeches begin the back half of the debate. They have three obligations. First, clean the debate and make sure that everything has a clear framework. Second, you should create a new and distinct case from opening. Third, you need to respond to the other sides arguments. 

Spend most of your prep time thinking about a lot or arguments. Be flexible and willing to find new arguments if your opening team uses them during their speeches. 

The easiest way to win from back half is to clear up a messy debate. If the top half has not set up a clear debate. (The round is a mess because no one knows what the goal is or people don't understand what the round is supposed to be about.) You can go in and provide new framing. For example, you can explain that the round should be judged based on who creates the most good and stops the most amount of harms. You could also explain that the United States doesn't care about health care and that we need to be talking about a global debate. 
Some questions to ask your self:
What is this round about?
What should it be about?
What impacts or arguments should matter most?
What does the status quo look like?
These questions can help you find ways to restructure the round.

Most importantly, you need to present a case that is different from what your top half team has already said. This is called making an extension. If you say the same things that they say you are derivative of them and will have a hard time winning the round. 
Your unique extension can be done in multiple ways. 
You can provide new arguments to prove why your side is right.
You can re-frame the round with a new framework.
Theoretical Arguments can make great extensions. (Arguments that focus on promoting autonomy or proving that governments have an obligation to do or not do something.)
Ask yourself these questions:
Who are the stakeholders (who is impacted by this proposal)? 
What action is being taken?
Why should that group or person be the one to take the action instead of another group or person?
What are the short term consequences? 
What are the long term consequences?
Is there a better way to do this? 
How would this work in practice?
How would this work in a perfect world?
All of these questions can help you find areas of the debate that have not been explored. If no one has talked about it yet, it can make a great extension. Additionally, you can extend the debate by providing more examples or providing the links that were missing in the opening cases. 

Tips and tricks:
Find one or two things and focus on them. Don't talk about a lot of small things. You need to go deep! Be nice to your partner, you need to give them something to work with. Ask for their opinion. Don't forget, a good whip normally requires at least a decent member speech! Sam is a miracle worker, but she can't win the round on her own. (Sometimes she can and it is amazing :))Your partner needs you to say something somewhat intelligible!

Government and Opposition Whip Speeches: 


The Whip speeches are the most different in the debate. They are designed to summarize the debate for the judges. However, they report the summary in favor of their bench. Most importantly, these speeches do not add new material to the debate.
I usually do not start preparing my whip speech until the first two speakers have started the debate. It is helpful to give yourself time to understand the framework of the debate and situate yourself in the context of the round. I do take notes of the main points from each speaker.
Tips to structure the summary speech:
·       Clash points
o   Summarize the main areas of clash and place all the speakers in contention with each other
o   Identify the main clash points in the debate and then argue why your side has more adequately argued those areas
o   Highlight how your bench (and mostly your partner!) has provided the evidence to win the round
o   Often I ask a “crystalizing question” to summarize the debate and provide the judges some structure (I will outline my Whip structure below)

·       Case Construction/ Deconstruction
o   Identify the main burden of proof for the debate
o   Articulate how your bench (mostly your partner) provided the contribution that clarified the debate and satisfied the burden of proof
o   For instance, if the debate was to “create free education for all individuals” than the summary speaker can advances that: there exists a right to free education, and free education results in good outcomes
o   This technique allows the summary speaker to focus less on the other teams arguments and more on what was advanced by your bench

·       Main points to remember
o   Do NOT bring new material
o    Support the extension speech!!
o   Explicitly rebut the arguments made by the extension speaker of the opposition side
o   REBUT the previous arguments from the extension speaker (especially on government whip)
o   Create a good comparative
o   Extra emphasize on your partners material

Sam’s Set-Up from Whip Speeches:

·        At the top of two pages, I create two (or three) summary questions that highlight the main points of the debate
·        Underneath each question, I write all the teams in the debate and one/two lines of the most important material they contributed to support that point
·        Underneath my small summaries of each of the teams, I write a summary of my partner’s speech as it applies to that crystalizing question

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why American Education Fails?

Despite previous initiatives to improve the American educational system, including No Child Left behind, Race to the Top, and Every Student Succeeds Act, the American education system is broken. Forbes proposes that the main reason for this degradation of the U.S. education system is because teachers are not treated like professionals. Background:  Many individuals would argue that there are certain characteristics that make good teachers --> a passion for their subject, deep knowledge on that subject, a willingness to listen to their students' needs, and a vision of what a properly education class will look like at the end of the academic year.  The largest problem with the American educational system is that it prioritizes standardized test scores above anything else. Test performance is tied to state funding and the evaluation of teachers and students.  While there is no empirical evidence to assert that standardized testing is the best indicator of knowledg...
Read more

The Basics of Queer Theory

What does it mean to be Queer? How should the LGBTQ community define themselves? All these questions answered and more! Queer theory’s origin is hard to clearly define, since it came from multiple critical and cultural contexts, including feminism, post-structuralist theory, radical movements of people of color, the gay and lesbian movements, AIDS activism, many sexual subcultural practices such as sadomasochism, and postcolonialism. Although queer theory had its beginnings in the educational sphere, the cultural events surrounding its origin also had a huge impact. Activist groups pushed back in the 1980's against the lack of government intervention after the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. Gay activist groups like ACT-UP and Queer Nation took the lead to force attention to both the AIDS epidemic and the gay and lesbian community as a whole. These groups helped define the field with the work they did by highlighting a non-normative option to the more traditional identity politi...
Read more

Learning Speaker Positions with Ciera

Deputy Leader of Government in Opening Government: I think that hardest position to learn is Opening Government. The Deputy Leader plays an important role in the round. Your job is to help your partner prep the model and prep their points. You should prep PM's speech before you start preparing your own.  The DPM has four obligations in the round. First, defend and rebuild the case started by the PM.  Second, destroy the opposition case. Third, add new arguments to the round. Fourth, respond to the back half team.  First, the Deputy Prime Minister defends the case presented by the Prime Minister by engaging any refutation presented against the case by the Leader of the Opposition. The Deputy should take up the Prime Minister’s argument one by one and defend each argument against any refutation by the Leader of the Opposition. Thus, at the end of this section of the Deputy’s speech, the audience should see that the case originally presented by the Prime Minister still...
Read more