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Warmup Activities: © Association For Global Debate 2016

The document describes various warmup activities and exercises that can be used to get students comfortable speaking publicly and practicing debate skills, such as going around in a circle stating names, counting numbers, having informal line debates on topics, asking 'why' questions to encourage analysis, listening exercises to improve note-taking and identifying arguments, and quick exercises to generate arguments and analyze actors involved in motions.

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Chaitanya Poonia
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38 views

Warmup Activities: © Association For Global Debate 2016

The document describes various warmup activities and exercises that can be used to get students comfortable speaking publicly and practicing debate skills, such as going around in a circle stating names, counting numbers, having informal line debates on topics, asking 'why' questions to encourage analysis, listening exercises to improve note-taking and identifying arguments, and quick exercises to generate arguments and analyze actors involved in motions.

Uploaded by

Chaitanya Poonia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Warmup activities

The general purpose of any warmup activity is that it gets the students comfortable
with speaking in front of the group. As such the actual content is less important than
forcing them to break the taboo against speaking in public. These should generally be
done for no more than 5-10 minutes at the start of a session.

A simple starting point for activities is to have students stand in a circle and say their
names, origins or a funny story about themselves. Variation can then be added by
having he students say their names in different tones and volumes.

For more energy you can replace names with counting of numbers, trying to keep the
count going quickly for as long as possible. You can then add in additional rules to
increase complexity, and train the students to be aware of what others are saying.
For example add rules that if a student claps instead of saying a number the direction
of the circle reverses, or a double clap skips the next person, etc. Try and have the
students focus on responding quickly, rather than being necessarily correct every
time.

Line and group debates

Before introducing students to the rules and structures of formal competitive


debates they should practice debating informally.

Split the group in half, moving students around to balance skill levels if necessary.
Then give them a simple topic, and designate one group for each side. Then give the
groups a short period of preparation time to come up with arguments for their side
(the exact length of time being dependent on the experience level of the students
and difficulty of the topic).

Select students from each group in turn to make a short argument for their side,
going back and forth between the groups. At this point it is not necessary to have
students stick to any particular timing or structure, though if excessive length
becomes a problem limit them to 1 or 2 minutes each.

If a small number of speakers are dominating discussion then introduce the rule that
a speaker can only speak once, or select speakers at random. For the “Line” variant,
have the two teams form lines facing each-other, with the speakers in each team
talking in their order in the line so that every member speaks once.

Instructors can also use this exercise to prompt students to practice particular skills.
E.g. have students rebut a previous speaker, or summarise points on their side of the
debate.

© Association for Global Debate 2016 - www.AGDebate.org - [email protected]


The “Why” Game

Activity to make the students practice analysis. Start by asking one of them an open-
ended question “why do we let everyone vote?” Then ask the next person why a
concept in the reply is important. Then continue round the circle getting into
progressively deeper levels of analysis. E.g. Why is democracy important? Why is
freedom good?

Additional variations can be made by giving students both a starting and ending point
for analysis. E.g. justify legalising duelling with a human rights framework. Or by
replacing the standard “why” question with questions ;like “why is this important.”

Listening exercise

Coach gives a 5 minute speech on a topic then asks the students questions about
what was said. The coach should make deliberate mistakes in the detail of the
arguments and see if the children pick them up. E.g. Make a mistake in the
mechanism that makes it impractical, make a factual error. Similar to “here’s one I
failed earlier” but focussing more on the details of the argument. Try to speak quickly
and impressively to make it hard to follow.

Get the children to practice making notes then briefly summarise the important
points of what you said and its issues.

Can also work with using a pre-recorded debate if IT facilities permit, a lot of debates
are available on youtube and can be found by a brief search. (Keywords: WUDC,
EUDC, WSDC, Public Forum).

For a more light-hearted version find a famous speech, poem or song lyrics, and
recite that quickly, then quiz the students on the details of what was said.

Analysis Game “Build the chain!”

Give the students a simple chain of analysis to prove, and ask them to make it as
detailed as possible. Giving points for the number of steps they include.

The idea is to teach the students the value of detailed analysis in making their points
persuasive. And train them to think through every logical step needed to prove the
point and the assumptions they are making.

Though the teacher should also explain that in a real debate not every point needs to
be explained in the same level of detail and that one needs to make strategic
decisions about what to prioritise. E.g. in most debates you won't have to justify
“death is bad” in much detail, and that time can be better spent on more contested
claims, such as how your mechanism will reduce deaths.

© Association for Global Debate 2016 - www.AGDebate.org - [email protected]


Useful metaphors for explaining are building a tower or links in a chain.

Quick prepping

Very simple. Split into groups/pairs give them a very short period of time (5 minutes)
to come up with as many arguments as possible for both sides of the motion.

Doug’s Game*

Split the class into groups of 3 or 4. Announce a motion to the whole class and give
them an appropriate amount of time to come up with as many unique arguments as
possible. Then go through the groups asking for their arguments, and scoring out of
10. If another group has already said that argument it gets no points. Continue the
game for at least as many motions as there are groups, ensuring each group gets a
turn at going first.

*[Named for Doug Cochran, formerly of St Andrews University and World


Universities Chief Adjudicator. ]

Actor generation

Split students into groups and give a motion.

Students should try and generate as many “actors” (those groups who are affected
by the motion), explain how they are affected (positively, negatively or both) then
rank them in order of importance.

Explain the value of actor analysis in generating material.

E.g. for a motion about schools the actors involved might be children, teachers,
parents, the government, wider society, minority groups etc. You can then subdivide
those groups and talk about how different subdivisions are affected, e.g. poor
students vs. rich students.

Importance Identification (What do I care about)

Can either be done separately or after a matter generation exercise.

Either provide for students, or get them to generate, a list of arguments for a motion.
Then number them in order of importance with 1 being he most important.

The criteria for importance are how big an impact that point will make and how likely
the other side are to contest it.

© Association for Global Debate 2016 - www.AGDebate.org - [email protected]

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