Camp Hain
The adventures of a Catholic family that homeschools, public schools, online schools, and has one super-obsessed with baseball kid. Currently I, Tia Hain, am a Classical Conversations Challenge A director, so a lot of this podcast/channel is related to that for now. I post a new podcast episode every Friday. But I also post other videos, including math (mostly algebra since I tutor) and our life on my YouTube channel, Camp Hain. We love our adventures, so come along for the ride.
Camp Hain
019 Team Policy Debate - Elements of a Good Case, the Debate, Order of Debate and Speaker Roles
Understanding the Elements and Structure of Team Policy Debate
In the second episode of the ten-part series on team policy debate, Tia Hain discusses the key elements of a good debate case and the structure of the debate itself. The episode explains the roles and responsibilities of each team member, the order of speeches, and the importance of appealing to the judges. Tia also delves into the specifics of constructing a solid case, cross-examination protocols, and the significance of thorough research. Essential resources such as the supplemental and templates available at CampHain.com are mentioned to aid listeners in their preparation. The episode aims to break down the complexities of team policy debate to make it accessible and comprehensible for high school students participating in classical conversations.
00:00 Introduction to Team Policy Debate Series
00:28 Overview of Team Policy Debate
02:26 Elements of a Good Case
04:50 Understanding the Debate Structure
07:05 Constructive Speeches Explained
11:13 Cross-Examinations in Debate
14:08 Rebuttals and Prep Time
17:30 Order of the Debate
21:02 Speaker Roles and Responsibilities
28:02 Conclusion and Next Steps
Links:
019 Team Policy Debate Elements of a Good case, The Debate, Order of Debate and Speaker Roles
Tia: [00:00:00] Team policy debate. Actually, this is the second episode of the series of team policy debate. It is going to be, I believe, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, oh my 10 episodes, but we really need to break it down. Each episode hopefully won't be as long as the first episode. That one was almost 40 minutes long. I wanted to break these down into smaller chunks because I wanted it to be a not so long and also easier to find.
If you are looking for something very specific from team policy debate, team policy debate is something we do in classical conversations. We start off in challenge one, which is kind of the equivalent to freshman year in high school. This is where they learn about team policy debate. They do the grammar part of it, they're.
Just learning what all the things mean and how they're doing it. Today's episode, we are going to be diving into the elements of a good case, the debate itself, the order of debate, and the speaker roles. The last episode I did was just the [00:01:00] debate introduction. What is debate? And I started going over the supplemental that I created, as well as the templates.
I am going to be. Using the supplemental for all the other parts that I'm doing. All of this stuff is within the supplemental that I created. It's a nice big PDF as well as the templates that we use. You can find those at CampHain.com, C-A-M-P-H-A-I-N. Com and I will also link them in the description below, so hopefully you can find them easier and I will list out in the description all the episodes that I'm going to be creating.
Hopefully I'll remember to go back and link them so you can find them easily. If you're on one episode, then you can find all the others.
But first, welcome to Camp Hain, the Adventures of a Catholic family that homeschools public schools, online schools, and has one super obsessed with baseball kid currently I, Tia Hain.
I made classical conversations challenge one director. I directed challenge one a few years ago, as well as directed challenge [00:02:00] A before two. A lot of this podcast channel is related to that. I post a new podcast every Friday, other videos as well, and I also post videos about math, mostly algebra since I tutor and our life.
We love our adventures, so come along for the ride and click subscribe or follow if you are a homeschooler or are thinking about homeschooling, or even if this content just answers you. There said the things. Now let's move on into the content.
Okay. Let's start with the elements of a good case, and like I said, and I'll keep reiterating, if you want this supplemental, which will be very, very helpful for you, just go to camp haine.com.
Hopefully I will remember to link it in the description. It should be linked in there to go to where the files are, but if you ghost directly to my website, just go to the upper right hand corner, click challenge one. It'll take you to the challenge one page, and you should see files on the right. It should be right in there.
Get the supplemental, get the templates, extremely hopeful. Anyway, elements of a good case for a good [00:03:00] case. For either the affirmative or the negative, you are looking for three key elements. First one is it is designed to appeal to the judge's decision making. You cannot build a case without thinking of your audience, which is the judges.
Remember, it's not your opponent. You're trying to convince. You are trying to convince the judges. Build a relationship with the judges, step into their world and think about what values and principles they care about. You wanna think of someone other than yourself, especially if you are a challenge one student, you're probably 14 or 15 years old.
Most likely. The judges are somebody's parent. Within your community, or even if you are just doing some type of competition, it's usually someone older. They don't think and see the world the same way you do, so you wanna try and put yourself into their world. Number two important key element. Your case is well.
Researched, you need information processing [00:04:00] skills for this. This will be gone over more in evidence when we go over that in a couple of episodes, but it needs to be very, very well researched. And then the third key element. Is the power of the claim. And what I mean by that is in your one acs, we'll just talk about the first affirmative construction right now.
It is the power of the harms, the plan and the advantages. They have to be very powerful to sway the judges to decide that making a change in our policy and all the hassle that that goes through, that it's worth it. You have to have a very powerful claim. Those are the elements of a good case. It's nice 'cause it's only three, but it's also very, very important and it's not super easy.
Okay, so that's that part. Next we move on to the debate itself. I'm just going to kind of give a good description of all of. The parts of the [00:05:00] debate. First thing is we have two teams. We have an affirmative team and a negative team. Each team is made up of two debaters. For the affirmative team, we have what's called a first affirmative and a second affirmative.
The first affirmative we refer to as one A. The second affirmative we refer to as two a. Then we have the negative team also made up of two debaters. There is a first negative and a second negative. Surprise. Surprise. The first negative is, you guessed it. We call that A one N, and the second negative we call a two N.
This is who you are in the debate. You need to know who you are, either A one A, a two A, A one N, or A two N to know what your job is during the debate. Now, the jobs during the debate are a construction speech, which we refer to as a c. Cross-examination questions, which we refer to as an X or a rebuttal [00:06:00] speech, which we refer to as an R.
How you'll see things written are like, we keep saying one ac, if you're in the middle of debate, you're seeing one AC thrown all over the place. The one A is who? The person is that is doing that job. The first affirmative, the C part is the job they are doing, which is the construction speech. One AC refers to the first affirmative giving their construction speech.
Then we are going to break down the parts of the debate a little bit more. They are not going to be. In the order that they go through the debate as I'm going through them. 'cause I'm going to talk about the constructions. I'm gonna talk about the cross examinations, and then I'll talk about the rebuttals, but then I will go over the order of the debate.
Because you don't just do a bunch of constructions, a bunch of cross examinations and a bunch of rebuttals. You have to put them in a certain order, but it's easier to talk about the constructions as a whole, the cross examinations as a whole, et cetera. Okay. [00:07:00] The first part, we're gonna talk about them in their little groups, and then we'll talk about how they go in the order of the debate.
Let's talk about constructions. The very first construction is the first affirmative construction, also called the one ac. Now the first affirmative construction should be six to eight minutes long. That's the time limit. You don't wanna go over eight minutes. If you heard my first episode in this series, I talked about how you need a timer.
This is where the timer comes in. They are the one saying. How much time they have left when the first affirmative is up there giving their construction. The timer will be timing and once they hit six minutes, the timer should hold up a two to say that they have two minutes left. When they are at seven minutes, they should hold up a one for they only have one minute left to let the first affirmative know how much time they have left to give their construction and if they need to speed things up a bit or possibly spread things out a bit if like they're only at.
Three or four minutes and they're almost done. It's like, Ooh, let's [00:08:00] try and stretch it a little bit more. That first affirmative construction, the first affirmative speaker will lay the foundation of the debate round with the only speech that is completely prewritten. This is the only one that is completely prewritten.
Okay? That's why we talk about it so much. That's why we spend a few weeks learning how to actually write. One ac. The one AC presents the affirmative case for change in the current policy. Everything is based off of this. One ac. Okay. Now the next construction that will be given is the first negative construction, which we call the one nc.
The first negative speaker will respond to the one AC beginning a broad attack to damage the. Affirmative's case, they're gonna kind of start wide and then narrow down as the second negative comes up to speak, but they're not up yet. This is just starting with the first negative construction. In addition, the first [00:09:00] negative construction needs to counteract every single point of the first affirmative construction because if they don't counteract a particular point.
They basically concede that point to the other teams. They want to at least talk about something with every single point. The first negative construction is also six to eight minutes long, so is the second affirmative construction, as well as the second negative construction. They're all six to eight minutes long.
We refer to the second affirmative construction as the two acs. Remember, the two A is the person, the C is the job. The second affirmative speaker will try to patch up any holes. The negative may have poked in the affirmative's plan, as well as reiterate the points laid out by the one ac. The second affirmative speech is mostly pre-written.
All the points are the same as the one ac, but new evidence and sources are used as well as the second. Affirmative construction has to [00:10:00] counteract anything that the first negative construction brought up, such as disadvantages in that first affirmative construction. The second affirmative construction has to counteract.
Those points because if they don't, then they concede that point to the negative. And part of the problem as we will go over in the negative, and I believe I brought it up when I talked about what is policy debate in the very first episode I did, the negative only has to have one point to win because the affirmative team is the one that wants change.
And they have everything pre-written ahead of time, and it's all based off of what they say. The negative only has to get one point to win the debate round. Now the next construction is the second negative construction, and this is also the last construction, also six to eight minutes. The second negative speaker will respond to any new arguments the second affirmative speaker has made, as well as add any new arguments not covered by the first.
This is the first part of [00:11:00] the negative block. Once again, I talked about this a little bit in the last episode and when we. Go over the order of debate here in just a minute. It'll explain it a little bit more. Okay, so those are your constructions. Now, let's go over the cross-examinations. The very first person to cross-examine is the two N.
It's the second negative. We call this the second negative cross-examination. Their cross-examination should be three minutes long, no longer the second negative speaker cross examinees the. First affirmative speaker. This would be the two N Cross examinees, the one A. Now, something that is very, very, very important.
The very first question that the two N asks is. May we have a copy of your one ac? Always, always, always ask a copy of that one ac. The affirmative team should have extra copies of their one AC because [00:12:00] they are supposed to be able to give it to the negative if they ask, as well as the judges. If they ask, they should have at least two extra copies, but if for some reason.
The second negative does not ask for a copy of the one AC when they go up to cross-examine. The affirmative team does not have to offer it up. That is not their job to offer it up. They don't ask for it, then they do not have it to base the rest of their debate on. They need that so they can write up their own constructions and their own rebuttals to what the affirmative has done.
Very, very important. Alright, the next person that will cross examine is the. First affirmative that is written as the one ax. The first affirmative cross-examination, also three minutes long. The first affirmative speaker cross examinees, the first negative speakers. We write that as one, a cross examinees one n.
The next cross-examination will be done by the first negative. We write that as one nx. Also three minutes [00:13:00] long. The first negative speaker cross examinees, the second affirmative speaker one N cross examinees the two A. I know this probably sounds confusing, but it will make sense in just a minute. And once again, please go get that supplemental so you can see this written out.
It'll probably make it a little bit easier. The last cross-examination will be done by the two A, which is the second affirmative. We write that as two a x. Also three minutes long. The second affirmative speaker cross examinees, the second negative speaker, we write that two a cross examinees two N. Now, one thing to notice the person doing the cross-examination is the person not about to give the next constructive speech.
It is their partner. So the person going up and doing the cross examination. Is not only asking questions for clarity, et cetera, they are also giving their partner time to finish up their construction that they're about to go up and give. That's the cross examinations. Now, let's go into the rebuttals and then we will go into the [00:14:00] what the prep time is and the order of all this stuff.
Okay? You just need it written out first, and then we're gonna figure out how we put it in the order. So let's talk about rebuttals. The first rebuttal that will be given is by the first negative that's written as one NR. Are three to five minutes each long. They're not as long as a construction, but. You don't want them to be super short either.
The first negative rebuttal comes immediately after the second negative wraps up the negative case. The one NR should refute affirmative arguments made so far and reinforce arguments made by the. Two and C. That's the second negative construction. This is the second part of the negative block. The next rebuttal given would be the one ar, and these actually go in order because there's no cross examination in the rebuttal, so it's just one after the other.
Once we start on the rebuttals first, it will be the first negative. Then it will be the first affirmative. They will give their rebuttal written as one ar. The first affirmative speaker will have to [00:15:00] respond to both the two nc, the second negative construction, as well as. The first negative rebuttal in this rebuttal speech.
The rebuttal speeches, there's no new arguments being made. They're reinforcing their arguments. This is where they really use their actual debating skills. The next rebuttal is the second negative rebuttal written as two nr. The second negative speaker will now summarize all of the arguments the negative team has made against the Affirmatives case.
This is the last speech for the negative team, and then the very last speech of the entire debate is that. Second affirmative rebuttal, written as two ar. The second affirmative speaker will summarize the Affirmative's case and refute the arguments that the negative team has made against them. This speech is the final speech of the round.
Those are all the different speeches, all the different times that they go up. So this is mainly for. Once you get into the debate, you, you can go like, okay, what, what does the one N do again? Or the one n are? You can go back and look and [00:16:00] see how it's described a little bit better. Now, there's a little note down here at the bottom of this page about prep time in a debate.
Each team is given a total of eight minutes of prep time. Throughout the whole debate, this is your time to gather and organize your evidence that you have with you at the table in a way to be able to take it up to the podium for the next part of the debate. You only have eight minutes total, so you don't wanna use all eight minutes to get your one NC ready and then have no prep time for later.
Divide it up how you need it and use it wisely. This is another thing that the timer is to be taken care of. I am pretty sure I'm gonna be the one doing this as opposed to the timer. 'cause I don't want to give our volunteer too much to do. But normally during a bait, the timer would also be timing how much prep time they're using.
For example, the first affirmative goes up, gives their constructive speech, the second negative goes up and does the cross-examination. During this time, the first negative [00:17:00] is writing up their speech, what they're going to do based off of the notes that they took, et cetera, and what they hear in the cross-examination.
Well, as soon as the cross-examination is done, then prep time is starting to be recorded. During the cross-examination, that is not considered prep time, but as soon as that second negative is done with their cross-examination questions and the first negative is still trying to get things ready that time.
Is considered prep time and being taken off their eight minutes of total time. Hopefully that makes sense. All right, let's get into the order of the debate. Hopefully this will make the rest of it make more sense. Now, this part is in the supplemental and within this particular part of the debate, the tour guide.
From Classical conversations, introduction to Debate, pages 15 through 22 also goes over this, and I think it does a pretty good job of going over this as well. In fact, I think what I created in the supplemental just streamlines it a bit more. [00:18:00] But if you look at your tour guide, pages 15 through 22, it explains more as you're going through this.
I think both of them compliment each other really well. Now in my supplemental, I used a lot of colors on this page to try to help people understand the difference between who you are and what you do. I have used a different color for first affirmative. A different, well, I used a blue for first affirmative, a green for second affirmative, a yellow for first negative, and a magenta color for second negative.
That's actually highlighted in there. So somebody could say, well, I'm the second negative, so I look for all the magenta on here. Now, in addition for what you do, I made the actual font different colors. Construction is red, cross-examination is blue, and rebuttal is purple. This way they can see if it's highlighted.
That is who it. Is, and then if it's just a color of a letter, that is what they are doing. Let me read how this works. The very [00:19:00] first thing to happen is the first affirmative constructions, the first affirmative highlighted in blue, goes up and gives their construction that is six to eight minutes long Then.
After they're done, the second negative highlighted in Magenta, goes up and does a cross-examination that isn't blue x, and that is three minutes long. After that is done, the first negative goes up to give their construction and that's six to eight minutes long. Then after they're done with their construction, the first affirmative goes up and does the cross examination of the first negative.
Then after that cross-examination is done, the second affirmative goes up to give their construction and hopefully you can see how the person doing the cross-examination is the one that's not gonna go up and give the next speech. Then after the second affirmative construction is done, the first negative will go up and do the cross examination.
Of the second affirmative. And [00:20:00] then when that is done, the second negative goes up to give their construction. And then the second, excuse me, after that second negative construction is done, the second affirmative goes up to do a cross examination of the second negative. So that part's all done. Those are your constructions and cross examinations.
Then we go into rebuttals. Your first negative goes up to give the. First rebuttal. Then the first affirmative goes up to give their rebuttal. Then the second negative goes up to give their rebuttal, and then the second affirmative goes up to give their rebuttal. That is the order of the debate. Once again, note the person doing the cross-examination is the one who is not giving the next speech.
This gives their partner who is giving the next speech more time to prepare. That's just another thing that's a little bit confusing, and then I did. Not really a drawing, but I just kind of did it, wrote everything out in arrows so you can see like how it goes in the debate. Once again, you [00:21:00] can look at the supplemental on my website for that.
Now the next thing we want to look at is speaker rolls. So I need to turn my paper here because I realize this one is in landscape, but if you get the supplemental, you can obviously turn it. I have it written out here, so whoever you are. You can see exactly what you're supposed to be doing. It's kind of a table, and the first one says, the one ac, the first person that goes up to give any kind of speech.
It says, affirmative, gives harms, solvency, describes status quo, the plan, the advantages, and summarizes. This is what the first affirmative is trying to do. They introduce their self and their partner. They state the resolution in their position. They define their terms. They list the harms with evidence to make sure to cover the stock issues, which we will be going over this more in the next episode.
They present their plan. They present advantages. And they are prepared to answer [00:22:00] questions from the cross-examination by the second negative. And then because this speech can be the driest, make sure the delivery and eye contact is engaging. It's the driest 'cause they're just reading off a piece of paper.
It's the only one that's done this way, but it is kind of dries. You wanna try to be engaging and. Make sure you are familiar with the wording and pronunciation. You practice, practice, practice your one ac. The next person that would be going up would be the first negative to give their construction negative.
Gives points and attacks. Affirmatives points. They accept or reject the definitions. They argue every point the affirmative brought up. If you don't mention them, they will be considered dropped, meaning that issue can no longer be addressed if you drop a point, if you don't address a point. Even if it's just some kind of quick addressing, then it's dropped, and that means you've given it to the other team.
The first negative attacks, the one ACS arguments and evidence addresses stock issues. The one AC neglected in their argument. [00:23:00] It happens a lot. Supports the status quos. They wanna say the status quo is absolutely just fine. They point out problems with the affirmative constructions plan. They press for evidence and they point out weaknesses from the cross-examination.
Hopefully their second negative that went up there and did some cross-examination, they showed some weaknesses. Affirmatives plan Now, the next person that goes up is the two ac. The affirmative defends their points, adds any new points, attacks, negatives, points, and gives a summary. They review all the points of the debate so far.
They refute any arguments from the negative. They rebuild and strengthen their first affirmative construction with the issues there, with new evidence. They clarify the story of the affirmative and any glaring issues or confusion. They address all the arguments. In order that the one NC presented them, they elaborate on the first affirmatives plan.
They mention if the negative construction has not argued an issue, so this is called the [00:24:00] dropped argument. If for some reason that negative didn't address something, that second affirmative goes up and wants to say, Hey, this was dropped. They give that point to us. They answer any specifics. The vagueness of the plan or questions, they demonstrate how the affirmative case outweighs the status quo and any disadvantages that the negative brought up.
The second negative, the negative defends points, adds any new points, attacks affirmatives points, and gives a summary reviews. The issue of the debate discussed so far. They argue issues brought forth from the second negative construction. They use the three part argument on line by line analysis. They said we said why we win, include any final negative arguments, disadvantages, et cetera that will make the negative case address the affirmative's answer to arguments why they do not adequately.
Adequately answer the negative. The impact of advantages show that they are actually [00:25:00] disadvantages, like timeframe, magnitude, probability, et cetera. And then the next one going up to give a speech is the first negative rebuttal. The one N attacks affirmative points and defense. The negative points they follow previous established flow for the arguments.
They use that three part argument with the line by line. They said this, we said this. Why we win? They cannot make any new arguments, but they can present new evidence to support their one NC and their two nc. They point out any dropped or conceited arguments. If the affirmative dropped any arguments, they point those out there.
They extend any offense, like reasons why they should win, and defense reasons why they shouldn't lose, and then address the affirmative's answer to the any of their arguments. Next, we have the first affirmative rebuttal. They attack the negatives points and affirm their points. They select the issues on which the debate may be won.
They condense arguments and address in line by line, the same thing they said. We [00:26:00] said, why we win? Point out any negative flaws and inconsistencies and contradictions. They use the one AC to weigh against negative arguments. They prove why their sources are better, the qualifications, the date, the relevance, and they extend any offense reasons why they win, and defense reasons why they don't lose.
The second to last rebuttal will be the second negative. The negative weighs the issues. Negative gives summary speech. This is their last one. For the negatives, they refute any more arguments from the first affirmative so that the judges will remember the points after the. Final second affirmative rebuttal.
They go for only a few winning arguments. They pick their best winning arguments and just dive deep onto those as much as they can. In their three to five minutes, they condense any arguments from their block and point out any drop or conceited arguments from the affirmative why the affirmative loses these particular arguments they use that they [00:27:00] said we said, and why we win.
They include. Overviews of the arguments from before and they end with a big picture call for a ballot. Three reasons why they win. Then the very last speech is the second affirmative rebuttal. The affirmative weighs the issues, gives a summary speech traces from their first affirmative construction from beginning to end, addresses all arguments in the second negative rebuttal points, any kicked out arguments.
So if for some reason the negative dropped anything they, the second affirmative can point that out. They state why. The affirmative wins on all four stock issues. They include overviews of the arguments before it's the last chance to clarify, tell the story of the affirmative. And they need to end with the big picture call for the ballot.
Say three reasons why they should win and give the last word. 'cause there's no response allowed. Those are the speaker roles and I believe that is all we are going to go over. [00:28:00] Today? Yes. Okay. This is the end of the second podcast of Team Policy Debate. Hopefully this will clarify a few more things.
Please go ahead and grab that supplemental and the templates are also there, which we'll be going over more in future episodes. Probably the next one, since we're gonna go over the, of. Affirmative. The very next episode is going to be all about the affirmative case and, and how it works, as well as the stock issues.
Please tune in for that, and I guess that's it. I hope y'all have a wonderful day. Bye for now.