I guess you can say that this unit is no longer, “Up for Debate”

On June 14th our new unit was introduced to us as a Lord of the Flies / Debate hybrid. We split our selves into Lord of The flies teams for a few weeks in the beginning and got to it. We were briefed about the point system that was to keep us on track and started reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Every week we wrote a paragraph that related to one of our 7 concepts and learned more about human nature. Every class taught by Ms Maxwell was different though. She taught us about Debating and the skills to become a confident public speaker. We learned debating and practiced through mini debates in class. All this was building up to something big.

On June 15th, we had a formal public debate tournament scheduled during the PLP 2017 summer exhibition. This was big news and with help from my teammate Marley  we went ahead and started preparing. Our charts were full and our understanding of the topics was sound. We planned our outfits and prepared signals, we had pre-prepared mic drop lines and concluding statements to trump our opponents. Then we lost first found.

What went well? 

Lets start with what went well. Our preparation was incredible and the work Marley did for the team was insane. One TA block Marley copied down everything from the physical charts into a collaborative pages document for Zak and I to read over. This alone was more than what most groups had and we went farther. We pulled facts off the internet and prepared for possible debate topics. We collected statements and powerful quotes to go along. After the the announcement of the topic for round one we started another collaborative pages and started to brainstorm anything and everything we could about power and authority.

When it came to actually debating I believe my team did quite well. I spoke most of the time and felt like my words, statements and points were strong to back my side of the argument. I spoke with confidence and positive body language, I didn’t speak to fast or slow and when I became flustered I let Marley take over. Overall I believe I personally did well in the preparation stages and in the debate stage.

What didn’t?

What didn’t go well was our luck with the voting. The judges saw the debates in a different light than we did and it affected us massively. We lost our first debate because of a split vote between the judges and the loss of the audience vote. The Vote we lost from the judges was because we didn’t split our speaking equally, she told us our arguments were strong and our connections were good but she chose the other side because the rubric provided to her required the teams to split up there speaking evenly. I found this unfair as she admitted we had a stronger argument and better points which is what debating really is. No matter its not like I’m still mad or anything.

How did you prepare or not?

Like I said above the preparation stage was one of our strong points. Marley is a master at preparing and commanded us well when needed. We filled out massive charts and prepared lines, points and statements. We collaborated over pages and wrote thousands of words. We prepared tapping signals to help each other slow down our pace, speed up, stop talking and other things.

What would you do differently next time?

Next time I would of read the rubric over than the one time I did. I also should of clarified with Hughes and Willemse how the judges are basing there points and what they are valuing.

In reflection, I really enjoyed this debate part of the unit. I feel like public speaking is one of my strong assents and this debate let me express it. I may have been frustrated and trumped by the judges but I feel there were errors on both sides of situation. In my opinion all the preparation was undermined by the surprise topic sentences and small prep time.