Matter Exercises
General Approaches to Improving Matter
The quality of your matter will be greatly influenced by your knowledge of your world. Research will not be of much use until you are able to identify what the issues are, know what is at stake and understand what it is you should be looking for. A broad general knowledge, including an awareness of major issues in the world today, is therefore essential for any debater who wishes to excel in either prepared or secret topics.
Watch the News or Read a Newspaper
Make sure you either read a newspaper or watch the evening news so that you are aware of local, national and international events. Regardless of your involvement in debating, as a functioning member of a free and democratic society, is important that you are aware of the issues that affect your community and the world around you.
Some people will keep folders with fact-files or well-written articles on important issues for use when preparing for debates (particularly secret topics – remember that you can take in any printed materials you wish, although electronic devices are forbidden).
And no, A Current Affair, Today Tonight and Andrew Bolt are not acceptable news sources.
Inquire about your Society
There are many aspects of our society that you may not yet fully understand. What exactly is the ‘free market’? What are human rights and what are their limits? How does a parliamentary democracy work, and what does it mean when people cast a vote? What exactly does the justice system take into account when determining guilt or punishment?
There is a lot of knowledge in our world that people often take for granted. Seek out information of these topics (the library, Wikipedia and the internet are good places to start – just make sure that the websites you use are reputable) and talk with people who may have a wider understanding of these issues than yourself. Look for the ideas, philosophies and histories that lie behind the issues that you see in the news: don’t just know what is happening, but start inquiring into why it’s happening, and why people believe the things that they do and why we see the world in different ways.
Line Debate
Purpose
This exercise is designed to teach debaters to think and speak quickly on their feet, and forces them to engage with both sides of a topic.
Instructions
Divide a group of debaters into two even groups. Give the groups a topic, and give the debaters a few minutes to come up with as many arguments as possible for both sides of the topic.
Have students stand in two lines with the first students. One line is the affirmative, one side is the negative. The students at the front of the lines need to present one argument each.
The adjudicator (or adjudicators) must make a quick decision as to which of these two arguments was better/more persuasive. Both students go to the back of the winning person’s line (e.g. if the affirmative argument wins, then both of the students join the back of the affirmative line). The next two debaters then present their argument, both join the winning line, and so on. Students cannot repeat an argument that has been said previously.
The rules can be varied to emphasise different skills (e.g. one turn the affirmative team must offer an argument while the negative rebuts, with the most persuasive person winning; in the next turn, the negative speaker must present an argument while the affirmative rebuts, and so on).
The debate continues until there is no-one left in one of the lines, making the side with all of the debaters the victor.
Identify the Argument
Purpose
This exercise is to help debaters distinguish between arguments and assertions, and understand the importance of using arguments to structure a persuasive speech.
Instructions
Work through the following list of points and mark with a star each statement which constitutes and argument (rather than just an assertion, rhetoric, etc). Once you have identified which are arguments and which are assertions, explain what makes an argument and ‘argument’, and why it is more persuasive than an assertion.
- People should ride bicycles more, because air pollution is really a problem in the city.
- Survival is the most important and most highly respected human value.
- Our awareness of environmental problems is increasing. Already we have reduced the emission of chemicals that destroy the ozone and have banned many pesticides.
- My opponent argues that acid rain is destroying the environment, but that is an inaccurate, incomplete and irrelevant argument.
- Species loss is at a crisis level. Harvard Biologist Edward Wilson estimates that nearly 140 species are lost every day.
- The most important action for any of us to take is to protect the environment. Please, take whatever action you can.
- Since all pollution laws have economic consequences, we need to look at this law’s effect on the economy.
- When a species loses its natural habitat, it is nearly impossible to prevent it from going extinct. There are only a few thousand Giant Panda, for instance, now that their habitat is taken over by development.
- How can we wait, even a single day, to take action to protect the environment?
- The move to a more ecological society will require big changes. The industrial revolution brought with it changes in government, family, and the economy. In the same way, the move to an ecological society will likewise require a fundamental change in our way of living.
- The affirmative argues that global warming will destroy the world, but they don’t prove that because they present no evidence that global warming is happening in the first place.
- The affirmative says that carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment. That is false.
Subversive Re-Writing
Purpose
This exercise is designed to expand debaters’ vocabulary and illustrate the importance of language in conveying tone.
Instructions
Find a short passage of text in print (an advertisement, an editorial in a newspaper, etc.) which is either positive or neutral toward a particular subject. Have debaters rewrite the passage by changing the word choices but maintaining the overall direction of the message. Their goal is to make the message appear to support the opposite side, simply by replacing selected words, without changing the overall meaning.
For example, consider the following passage:
Turkey lovers far and wide insist upon the freshest possible bird.
This could be subversively re-written like so:
Those scattered people who enjoy ingesting the dead flesh of a Turkey want to consume that carcass as soon after as possible to when it has been slaughtered.
The general statement is the same, but the word choice makes it a different message altogether.
Parliament is in Session
Purpose
This exercise forces debaters to approach an issue from a different perspectives and helps them to develop an understanding of how a philosophical, cultural or historical perspective will influence the arguments a side presents.
Instructions
Divide debaters into three or more ‘political parties’. If they wish they can name their party and create a philosophy.
Have each debater create a “bill” (a policy proposal – a new law or a change to an existing law, for example ‘that we should legalise marijuana’ or ‘that we should abolish off-shore processing of asylum seekers’).They will need to present a model that briefly explains how their proposed “bill” would operate.
Make a list of all of the bills from each party. Allow members of each party to look at the list of bills proposed by the other parties. They must select at least half of those bills to oppose.
Give students about ten minutes of preparation time in which to:
- think about how they will defend their own bill, and
- think about how they will attack the bills which their party has decided to oppose.
Once the preparation time ends, a parliamentary assembly begins. The instructor, acting as the speaker of the house, invites the consideration of each bill in turn, with debaters making speeches in favour of the bill, and other debaters making speeches against the bill.
If a party has chosen to follow a particular philosophy (for example a conservative, progressive, feminist, fascist, socialist or environmentalist perspective), then they will need to support or attack bills in accordance with that philosophy, and be consistent in their arguments.
When the speeches die out, each bill is voted on.