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 Sample Public Forum Debate Round

 Humorous Showcase

 Sample Policy Debate

 
 
 
Public Speaking & Debate Program for Kids and Youths
 
Debate is a fantastic activity. You'll improve your communication, research, organization, and presentation skills. You learn to disagree without getting angry. You'll learn how to be effective in discussions. You'll learn to deal with fears of speaking. You'll improve your critical thinking skills. Debate is an amazingly powerful educational activity; it will involve you more than any class you have ever taken. Debate will prepare you for college and a life of greater success. 
 
At AGAPE Leaders Prep, we support you. We know it takes courage to speak and we know the effort you'll put into making your arguments. We understand students who are nervous about speaking; students who have strong opinions that they want to express; and students who want to learn how to organize their thoughts and express them effectively. At AGAPE Leaders Prep, we will work one-on-one with you to realize your goals in a supportive environment.
 
 
Debate Program Description & Curriculum
 
* Parliamentary Debate
Parliamentary debate is the most popular format of debate. While parliamentary debate tournaments were rare in the past, university debate programs have started hosting high school and middle school tournaments to pick up the slack. Parliamentary debate is most commonly a three-on-three format, but there are two-on-two and four-on-four variations. Speakers are given lengthy speeches, roughly eight minutes each, except for reply speeches, which are much shorter. A key element of this format is the "point of information." These points are a way that the opposing team can interrupt speeches to ask questions. Roughly half of parliamentary debate rounds are impromptu, meaning that students have only 30 to 60 minutes to prepare for the debate. The top debate tournament in the world for this format is the World Schools Debating Championship.

1.     Arts programs should be mandatory in school.

2.     Free speech should not protect hate speech.

3.     The US Constitution should not permit birthright citizenship.

4.     Governments have an ethical responsibility to fund the long term preservation of cultural and historical artifacts.

5.     Children should be required to provide room and board for their elderly parents.


*Public Forum Debate
The second most frequently debated format is Public Forum. This format is very popular among international schools.  Public Forum is a fantastic format to start learning debate. There are no interruptions like in parliamentary debate and no impromptu rounds. The format is two-on-two and after both sides speak there is a shared "crossfire" time in which the two sides go back and forth with questions. The final speech, called "final focus," is a mere minute long and really presses debaters to explain why your team won in that small time. The top debate tournament in the world for this format is the National Forensic League (NFL) national tournament.

  1. April 2011 - Resolved: The United States federal government should permit the use of financial incentives to encourage organ donation.
  2. March 2011 - Resolved: North Korea poses a more serious threat to United States national security than Iran.
  3. February 2011 - Resolved: Wikileaks is a threat to United States national security.
  4. January 2011 - Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining undermines the criminal justice system.

*Policy Debate

Policy debate is a form of research-based speech competition in which teams of two advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government; it is for this reason that this debate is unique to the United States. It is also referred to as cross-examination debate (sometimes shortened to Cross-X, CX, or C-X) because of the 3-minute questioning period following each constructive speech. Affirmative teams generally present a plan as a proposal for implementation of the resolution.

  1. 2010-2011
    Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its military and/or police presence in one or more of the following: South Korea, Japan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Turkey.
  2. 2011-2012
    Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.