Debate at Kaiser High School

All in all it was a fun day. Three teams went: Eric and Lawrence; Geneca and Cory; and Tim and Sam. We each did 4 rounds during the debate. The topics were:

• This house believes that the election process is broken.
• This house believes that the will of the people is irrelevent.
• This house believes that the redistribution of wealth is unjust.
• This house believes that increasing domestic oil is sound energy policy.

Everyone had a fun time and we all learned a lot. Sam made Geneca and Lawrence sing the chorus from "Lean On Me", while they have enacted a promise for a rap recital at some later date. Tim, Cory and Eric all moarned about the formal wear.

Pictures will come later - my computer is currently in a bad mood.

Flow

Flow is the way you distill the other side's arguement or speeches to specific points that you can counter. If you can't figure out what they said, how can you possibly tell them that they are wrong?

[insert picture of flow that is on a disc that my computer is not recognizing]

[again.]

The picture that you are not seeing is of a page in a notebook. It is divided vertically into six sections (one for each debate).

Listen closely - generally people will state their contentions in their introduction. If not, try to find their main points - don't just write their examples down. It also helps if you abbreviate words. The less time spent actually writing things down, the more time can be spent listening and formulating your own arguments.

If two people address the same argument, connect the two sections with an arrow. If someone forgets to argue a point, draw an x or an arrow to note that they dropped the argument.