Arguably the Best Project
Debating one of the most entertaining things you can do in an english or a socials class and PLP took it to whole another level. Our debates were on concepts such as “Is it necessary to question authority in society?”. These question as you can see are very broad so you could take it a million different ways.
To help us understand the 7 topics we will be debating we read one of most famous concept books of all time Lord of The Flies (LOTF) which covered all those topics.
Power and Authority – Jack and Ralph how they used and gained their power and authority.
Humanity and Inhumanity – Roger wanting to throw rocks at a little boy but doesn’t because of his humanity gained through civilization.
Violence and Destruction – Killing of simon and piggy because of reckless and immature actions.
Human nature – When things get difficult the boys turn back to their savage human nature.
Civilization and Savagery – Jacks society represented savagery, Ralphs would represented civilization.
Innocence and Evil – All boys lose their innocence throughout the book because of the tough positions they were put in.
Individualism and Community – Jack running off and hunting instead of helping Ralph and Simon build a shelter the more important task.
Clearly LOTF covered all these topics and gave us a good baseline of understanding but that info and arguments are not gonna win you a debate especially if the judges haven’t read LOTF. So we had to create and think of different ideas on a sheet with our debate team.
Arguably the Best- Maria, Michael, Chris
We didn’t manage to use a lot of our ideas but doing this sheet helped us get into the right mindset for our debate. We also practiced by promoting each other topics like is “democracy the right best balance of power and authority” and one group member would argue pro the other con. This also helped us thinking on our feet and preparing for the real event.
Ok, so i’ve told you what’s happened before the debate but how did the actually thing go. Well many people packed into the flight room as we started our PLP “Battle Dome” bracket style debate tourney. Each team was prompted with their question such as “Be it resolved everyone has a greed for power” or something like that. The teams were then decided which was pro and con and then the frantic one minute prep began. After the prep the teams would have 3 minutes of running time to plead their case however they pleaded. For that topic we got the con side so we decide to define the question a bit “Be it resolved everyone has a greed for success”. So after we established that main idea we were able to counter their arguments by saying that the power they gained was just cause they wanted to succeed. We also made our own points that everything someone does is for self satisfaction and gain and their is no underlying desire for power. For all our debates we took the same approach redefine the topic a bit so it was easier to argue. Our team managed to win the tourney as we had good battles against all three other teams.
Michael and Maria were great teammates as they could speak well and had great ideas. Michael was able to bring up relevant points that were powerful. Maria’s strongest moments is when she took a personal spin on the arguments and those were really powerful.
This project was great as it was engaging didn’t take ridiculous amount of production but more thinking and the end result was entertaining and fun.
