The end of a school year in PLP means one thing…it’s time for an exhibition! Remember back in December how we had to create an immersive experience from pre-war Canada to the depression? Well this was like that…except completely different.

This exhibition challenged us just as much, if not more, just with less building of physical props, and more building our public speaking and thinking on our feet skills. You may be wondering, well what did you have to do? Well, let me tell you…

…A Debate!!! Actually no, not just one debate…a whole debate tournament! Yep, that’s what we had to do. We had teams, and a whole bracket.

At the beginning of this unit we were given 7 concepts, which we had to build on. We created charts of ideas around them, and were supposed to collect enough information to be able debate whatever we were given. We read Lord of the Flies which helped expand our knowledge of the concepts and added this to our charts.

The debate format wasn’t as formal as most debates. We didn’t have our topics until right before the debate, when we got 1 minute of prep time. Each team then got either 2 or 3 minutes to debate depending on the round. There was a timer setup on the app Board Game Timer and once each time said their point they’d press it and the other team’s time would begin counting down. This would go back and forth until both teams’ time was up.

My team “Debates R Us” was made up of Michael Fourie, Luciano Boniface and me. I personally think we worked pretty well together. We had a good mix of skills. For example, Michael was good at thinking on the spot, and Luc was good at speaking in front of the group. My role in the group was more ahead of time, preparing for the actual night. I helped a lot building up our concept charts and figuring out how much we needed.

One example of a chart

We filled out seven of these charts, but I figured I should just give one example because does anyone really want to see all seven? And we practiced debating. A lot. Along with that we watched lots of videos on how to win debates and how to public speak well.

One thing I think our whole class may have focused a bit too much on was in fact Lord of the Flies though. In fact, my group’s first debate ended up mainly being Lord of the Flies related, so I think we may have lost some of the audience there.

Next time I’d try to calm down even more before hand, and prepare even more. I’d practice arguing really hard topics, and I hope next time I’ll be better at thinking on my feet.

This assignment was actually really fun! I enjoyed debating even though it was quite terrifying. I hope to get to do something similar to this again!

All in all I think this project was very important and did a good job helping to increase my public speaking and thinking on the spot skills.