Novice LD Guide

2010

Public Forum Lesson Plans

Mr. Jesse Meyer
Director of Debate at Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School.

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Table of Contents
Notes--------------------------------------------------------------- Page 3
Lesson 1 (What is an Argument?)----------------------------- Page 4-5
Lesson 2 (Value and Criterion)-------------------------------- Page 6-7
Value list handout-------------------------------------- Page 8-13
Lesson 3 (Case writing)---------------------------------------- Page 14-15
Case outline handout---------------------------------- Page 16-17
Lesson 4 (Refutation)------------------------------------------ Page 18-21
Lesson 5 (Cross Examination)-------------------------------- Page 22-24
Lesson 6 (Flowing)--------------------------------------------- Page 25
Flowing Video Guide--------------------------------- Page 26
Lesson 7 (Crystallization)-------------------------------------- Page 27

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Notes
This lesson guide was created to teach middle school/novice students the basic ideas and
concepts of debate in 7 short and easy lessons. The estimated time, depending on teacher speech,
class structure, class participation and engagement, and re-teaching is between 10 to 14 class
days.
The primary reason that I wrote this guide is that many of the novice LD guides/lesson
plans that Ive read are informative, but for a classroom teacher who may or may not have had
any information or experience with debate, their lessons can be confusing or too technical for the
classroom. It is my goal that these lesson plans can be seen as accessible for both new and
veteran debate teachers/coaches.
It is my belief that speech and debate activities are some of the most beneficial activates
that as educators, we can teach and give to our students. Speech and debate activities teach good
communication skills, research skills, and effective interpersonal interaction for a globalized
world. I have written this guide in the hopes that others will find my simplistic but informative
lesson an easy way to access debate information and relay that to your students.
A final note, this guide is a work in process. I am constantly adding and changing
information in this guide. Feel free to modify these lessons and activates to fit the specific needs
of your classroom. Also, if you have questions or comments on this guide, feel free to contact me
by e-mail at jessemeyer@gmail.com.
Have fun and good luck.

Jesse Meyer

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Lesson 1: What is an argument?
Standards:
Iowa Core W.7.1: 1. (Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant
evidence.)
Objective:
1. Students will be able to describe the parts of a successful argument
2. Students will be able to create arguments of their own to support different topics.
Key vocabulary: Affirmative, Negative, argument, resolution, impact.
Part I- The argument.
What is an argument? An argument is an issue that someone uses to either support or attack an
idea.
Idea- Our school should have a dress code.
Argument for this idea- Dress codes eliminate the need for high priced clothing.
Argument against this idea- Dress codes restrict free expression.
In this example, the idea that is going to be debated is that there should be a dress code. The
affirmative would be the side that would be supporting the idea or resolution. The idea or
resolution is the statement that the debate will be centered around. The affirmative would be for
the resolution. In this case, the affirmative would support the idea that school uniforms should be
used. The negative would be the side that is against the resolution. In this case, the negative
would be against resolutions.
Part 2- What makes a good argument?
When you are talking with your students, dealing with teachers, and asking your parents for
more curfew time, you are making arguments. Everyone makes arguments every day. Now, some
arguments are good and some are not so good.
What will a good argument have?
A good argument will have support. If you support school uniforms, you would do research to
find what others are saying about school uniforms. This research should come from people that
are experts in the field of education or uniforms.

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A good argument will make sense. Saying that school uniforms supports aliens is an argument
and Im sure that you can find someone that says this, but this argument is silly.
A good argument will have an impact. An impact is the effect of an argument. Take this for
example. If I say that school uniforms are bad because they silence freedom of speech, you have
made an argument. For this argument to have an impact, you must prove why freedom of speech
is good.
In class activity
Have the students break into 2 person groups. Give the students one of the following topics-Dogs are better than cats.
-Football is better than basketball.
-Coke is better than Pepsi.
-Band is better than choir.
-Schools should not have a dress code.
In their groups, have the students brainstorm and write down on a piece of paper the following
information:
-Decide what the affirmative and the negative would have to argue.
-Pick a side (Affirmative or Negative).
-Each side will think up 3 arguments for their side.
-Students will present their arguments for their side.
Collect this paper as a ticket out the door formative assessment.

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Lesson 2- Case writing
Standards:
Iowa Core W.7.2 (Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas,
concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.)
Objective:
1. Students will be able to list the parts of a debate speech with definitions of the parts.
2. Students will be able to create an outline for a debate case using the template provided.
Important vocabulary- Definitions, Main points, contention
Now that you know what a resolution is, what the affirmative and negative are, and how to think
up arguments, it is time to take these parts and put them into the formal Lincoln Douglas case
format.
Part 1- Parts of a case
Each case should start with an introduction. The introduction should include an attention getter.
This could be a fact, a quotation from an expert in the topic, or a short story. The attention getter
should set the tone for your case.
The next part should be your definitions. You want to define any term that you think would help
your case. Important words in the resolution, important words that you will be using in your
case, or any word where there could be many different ways of defining that word should be
included.
Framework should likely be the best part of the case. Framework is the lens through which the
judge will weight all of the impacts within the round.
After these things are done, you would want to start the main body of your case. The main body
should have at least two main points. A main point would be one of the reasons that you found
to support your side. Your main point should state in simple language what your argument is.
You should then use research to support your main point. Another name for a main point is a
contention.
For example, if I was writing that school uniforms promote safety, a main point could start off
like this:
First, student uniforms provide for the safety of school students. According to Al Hiland,
Director of Human Resources at the New School in New York City, School uniforms
provide for student safety. Since every student is wearing the same thing, there is no more

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competition for who has the better, more expensive clothing. In the last 3 years, school
uniforms have reduced violence in schools by 23% in the New York City area.
This is a short example of how a main point should be. A main point should be longer and it
should have more evidence. Main points can have more than one argument in them, but the
arguments should be similar. For example, if your argument is that school uniforms promote
safety, you could talk about them reducing fights and how they reduce gang crime.
There should be two main points per case, and the preferred number of main points will be three.
When you are done with your main points, you will enter your conclusion. In the conclusion, you
will need to summarize what you just said. Dont repeat old information, but give a two to three
sentence summarizing your entire case.

In class assignmentHave the students take the arguments that they have put together for their small group debates
and put them into a case format.

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Lincoln Douglas Case Outline

Opening Quotation:
Fun fact, statistic, or quotation.
Because I agree with (the author of my quotation), I affirm/negate the resolution which states Resolved
(Insert resolution here)

Definitions:
For this debate, I offer the following definitions:
(Insert the definitions here)
Value and Criterion:
My value for this round will be______________, which is important becauseThis value relates to the
resolution because
My criterion will be_______________. This criterion is important because
Contention One (tagline):
Argument One Data (evidence)
Impact
Relationship to the criterion and value

Argument Two Data (evidence)

Impact
Relationship to the criterion and value

Contention Two (tagline):

Argument One Data (evidence)
Impact
Relationship to the criterion and value

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Argument Two Data (evidence)

Impact
Relationship to the criterion and value

Conclusion
Summarize, summarize, summarize.

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Lesson 4: Refutation
Standards:
Iowa Core SL.7.1 (Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in
groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on ((Middle Grade)) topics, texts, and issues,
building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly.)
Objective:
1. Students will understand how you go about attacking your opponents case.

Important Vocabulary- non unique, magnitude, probability, time frame, turns, offence, defense.
Now that we have discussed making arguments and writing cases, we must discuss how
to attack your opponents. Think of an argument you may have had with a friend. You wouldnt
just let them make their arguments and then back away, you would want to attack their
arguments so that your arguments seem stronger. This is the basics of what you would do in
debate. To help make your case look stronger, you would want to attack your opponents case.
This means that even though your opponent may have a good case, your case in the end is better.
In class activity
Using the topic of school uniforms, have the students work with a partner to create a list of
arguments for and against school uniforms (less than 2 minutes). After that is done, pick 4-5
students to write their affirmative arguments on the board. Do this for the negative as well. Then
ask the students to start thinking of how they would respond or answer the an argument that is on
the board. Call on people to state a way they would answer one argument that has been listed on
the board. Write these on the board or in a word document. Keep this list.
Here are common ways to respond to arguments.
- Pointing out the missing steps in their logic. This doesnt just mean noting that the original
argument is making assumptions, but pointing out what those assumptions are and saying why
they are wrong.
- Pointing out that the argument does not have a clear reason why this argument is true.
- Explaining why the argument is non-unique. This means that problems they claim will
happen with your case are already happening.
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- Even if the claim they are making is true, it is not relatively important. These types of
arguments are called weighing arguments.
1. The probability that that the claim would happen being small
2. The scope or magnitude of the argument being small, meaning that the
problem they cite would not affect that many people or the benefit they are
claiming would not help that many people
3. The time frame on which the argument operates being either too short term
to really help or happening to slowly or too far in the future to solve the
problem presented.
- Citing a logical fallacy being made by the argument. Some of the common logical fallacies are:
- The causation/correlation fallacy. This means that the argument is confusing two things that
occur simultaneously with one thing that occurs due to another thing.
- The naturalistic fallacy, also called the is/ought fallacy. This is when an Argument rests upon
the assumption that just because something happens in a certain way in todays world that it
ought to always happen in that way.
- Begging the question. This is another way of saying the argument is circular meaning that the
argument assumes premises that assume the conclusion of the argument.
- The false dilemma. This type of argument puts two options in opposition to each other and
forces a choice between these two options but ignores other potential options.
In class activity
Go back to the list that was generated at the start of the class. Ask students to look at the list of
arguments that you generated. Classify the arguments based on the list you just generated.

All of the above response types can be classified as DEFENSIVE refutations. This means they
are in some way trying to deny the veracity of the claim or render the claim unimportant. If the
refuter wins these types of arguments they have simply denied their opponent the ability to win
using these arguments.
Offensive responses are called, in Lincoln Douglas, turns. Turns concede the premise or warrant
of the argument being made but explain why this premise or warrant is a reason to vote for the
refuters side. There are two different types of turns:

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1. Link turns- This type of argument means that you dont cause the impacts, in fact, you
stop them. An example is: If your opponent says that your case causes school violence, a
link turn would be that you actually stop school violence.
2. Impact turns- With this type of argument, you would say that you do cause the impacts of
your opponents case, but that is good. An example is: if you opponent says that school
uniforms destroys personal expression, you could impact turn this by saying that
destroying personal expression is good because it leads to safety because people wont be
getting angry at another persons expression.
In class activity
Ask the students to generate offensive arguments to the list of arguments that you wrote on the
board at the start of class.

When responding to your opponents value and criterion, you respond in a slightly different way.

When arguing your opponents value or criterion, follow these guides.

-The proposed value criterion is circular with the value. This means that the value criterion is
essentially the same thing as the value, and therefore doesnt help explain how one meets the
value.
-The proposed value criterion doesnt link to the value. This means that the value criterion
doesnt really discuss what the value is about.
-A different value criterion has a closer link to the value.
-The proposed value criterion is too vague and therefore is not useful because it doesnt give a
useful description of how one would know if they have fulfilled it.
-A different value criterion is a pre-requisite to the proposed value criterion. This means that one
must first have do one value criterion in order to even think about achieving the proposed value
criterion.
-The proposed value criterion isnt sufficient to reach the value. This means that even if a debater
were able to fulfill this value criterion, the value wouldnt be reached because there are too many
other things that would ALSO have to be done to reach the value.
-The proposed value criterion isnt necessary to reach the value. This means that the value can be
reached without ever considering what the proposed value criterion is referencing.

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-The proposed value criterion isnt measurable or weighable. This means that the proposed value
criterion doesnt give any effective way to compare arguments.
-The proposed value criterion lacks a bright line as to when it is reached. This means that this
value criterion doesnt specify how much of the action must be taken to support one of the sides
of the resolution.
-The proposed value criterion is too broad and therefore isnt a useful way to evaluate arguments
in the context of the resolution.

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Lesson 5- Cross Examination
Standards:
Iowa Core L.9-10.4 (Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
and phrases based on grades 910 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of
strategies.)
Objective:
1. Students will be able to describe what kinds of elements should be included in cross
examination.
2. Students will be able to cross examine another student.

Important Vocabulary- CX (short for cross examination)

Once during a debate, you will have the chance to ask your opponent questions. Also, once
during a debate, you will get asked questions.
When crossing an opponent:
- Start with OFFENSE! As the negative debater, students first chance to speak in the round is the
first cross examination question. They shouldnt waste the opportunity by asking a clarification
question which can send the message that the student did not pay attention. In order to do this,
students can pre-prepare a few questions that affirmative debaters tend to not answer in their
cases. Leading with one of these sends a good message. Alternately, students can ask their
opponent what the central thesis of his/her case is. It is amazing how this question rattles
students as they have trouble concisely giving the big idea of their case.
- Have a plan! Students should have several objectives going into CX whether this is to obtain
specific concessions, to nail down the opponent to a specific meaning of a certain term or to
highlight the fallacious nature of a specific argument. The more specific the objectives, the more
successful the CX tends to be.
- Favor shorter questions that all build on each other rather than one long ponderous question
(which tends to get confusing)
- When asking clarification questions, students should never say I didnt get the argument of the
second contention. They should instead ask, Can you tell me the exact argument of your
second contention and explain how this contention fulfills your criterion? Notice here the
student will not only get the clarification they seek but also how this contention links to the
criterion which will help the student understand the function of this argument in the round. The

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tactic here is linking clarification questions with questions about the implications of that
argument. Rather than asking What is your value criterion? students should ask What is the
exact text of your value criterion and how does it help us measure the value?
- Pick an argument and just ask variations on why?
- If the opponent has something confusing in his/her case, students can ask him/her to read
sections of the case aloud to clarify.
- Be careful not to ask totally open ended questions.
- When flowing the opponents case, a student should have a third color pen handy. When the
student hears something they think they want to ask a question about or miss something, they can
circle the argument or the blank space where they need to fill in an argument. This way, the
student will be less likely to forget to ask that question.

When being cross examined:

- The most important thing is to remain calm and composed no matter what students opponents
are doing.
- The second most important thing is to know the case backwards and forwards. When the
opponent asks questions, a student wants to try to stick to the text of his/her position. S/he should
convey the idea that the concern that brought up has already been answered in the position.
-Students should answer questions directly without rambling. Most people who make
concessions do so when they talk too long without thinking about what they are saying.
- Students should not be afraid to take a moment to consider their answer before responding.
- Most yes or no questions that debaters ask are not really yes or no questions. students shouldnt
t let an opponent force them into a situation where them cannot clarify what they mean. If
opponents insist you answer yes or no, let them know that the question they are asking really
isnt a yes or no question and that you would be glad to explain why your answer needs to be
more nuanced than yes or no. On the flip side, if you are asked a simple yes or no question
that can be answered, answer it.
- Be careful if your opponent tries to trap you in a hypothetical situation or makes an analogy. Be
sure that the situation is actually analogous before you answer the questions. If the situation isnt
analogous, explain to your opponent why it isnt analogous.
- Finally, remember, be calm and composed.

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In class activity
Ask students for students for volunteers. The volunteers will take a side in the dress code debate.
Students from the class will then have a chance to ask these students questions.

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Lesson 6- Flowing a Round
Standards:
Iowa Core L.7.1 (Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and
usage when writing or speaking.)
Objective:
1. Students will be able to describe the concept of flowing and why it is important.
2. Students will be able to take notes (flow) a speech or a lecture, or a debate.
Important vocabulary- AC, NC, 1AR, 2NR, 2AR
To begin, have each student take out (or give them) two blank pieces of paper (I find
unlined paper easier to work with, but that is a matter of preference). Have them hold the paper
so the long side is vertical. Each student should be told to divide one paper into five roughly
equally sized columns by drawing three lines down the paper. The other sheet should have four
columns. As students get better with flowing, they will not need to draw these lines, but they are
helpful when beginning. On the sheet with five columns, they should head the columns Aff Case
(AC), Negative Case (which is the refutation portion of this speech) (NC), 1st Aff Rebuttal
(1AR), Negative Rebuttal (NR) and 2nd Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) from left to right. On the
other sheet, head the columns Neg Case (NC), 1st Aff Rebuttal (1AR), Neg Rebuttal (NR), 2nd
Aff Rebuttal (2AR).
As students listen to an affirmative case, they should write their notes in the left hand
column. Tell the students that they want to make sure to write in a type of shorthand. They
should develop symbols and abbreviations to represent common things in debate rounds. For
example, to label the value, use V; to label the value criterion, use VC; rather than write the
word Justice (which comes up in a LOT of debate rounds), you can write a J with a circle
around it.
When going into a round, students should have their own case pre-flowed. If they are
affirming, they should have the AC column filled out with all of the information from their case.
The reason for this is so when the negative is responding to the affirmative case, the affirmative
debater can write the negatives responses down next to the corresponding arguments. A well
thought out pre-flow can also be used to see which arguments your opponent is missing or
mishandling as well as to help in the next speech. Students, eventually, should begin to type up
their pre-flows using the rhetoric from their cases and the wording by which they intend to
extend each piece of analysis.
In class activity
Using the following youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT0Sz6FTT0M), have
the students watch the video and complete the following worksheet.

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Please define the following terms:

ConcedingFlowingTag-

Answer the following questions:

Why is note taking in debate called flowing?

What is the most important (most vital) pieces of information to take down when flowing?

Why is it important to take notes in a debate round?

What is the benefit of abbreviating things when taking notes in a debate round?

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Lesson 7- Crystallization
Standards:
Iowa Core L. 9-10.3 (Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in
different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully
when reading or listening.)
Objective:
1. Students will understand how to effectively conclude a debate.

Important Vocabulary- Decision calculus, crystalize, voting issues

While crystallization is always (or should be) done in the final speeches for each debater,
there are differences in how different debaters allocate time to crystallization. Some negative
debaters will discuss the decision calculus (reason that the judge should vote for you) the judge
should use at the beginning of the NR, deal with issues on the flow and then give voting issues at
the end of the NR. Other negative debaters will crystallize down the flow, meaning that they
will give voting issues as they finish discussing that issue on the flow rather than waiting to the
end of the speech. Think of a real crystal. It is hard and solid. That is what you are trying to do;
you want to solidify your arguments and give the judge a reason to vote for your side in this
debate. Some affirmative debaters will spend the entire 2AR doing crystallization. Others will
discuss specific issues on the flow before giving voting issues at the end of the 2AR. There is no
right way to do this although different students and judges may have preferences.
Effective final speeches will give the judge a reason to want to vote for you. This should
be accomplished by looking at your flow of the debate and picking out reasons why your
opponent is wrong or should lose the debate (Look for offensive arguments that you have made
or reasons why their case isnt superior to yours.) Look at the value and criterion debate. Which
side has the stronger value? These reasons why you should win are called voting issues.
In class activity
Have the students take the debate materials (if possible, use the cases they have been working
on) and ask the students to spend 10 minutes looking at how they would want to end the debate.
How would they like to be remembered?
Invite students to come to the front of the room to present their conclusions to the class.

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