Roles and Strategies for the First Government Team

1. China Debate Education Network: Roles and Strategies for the First Government Team

2. Contents: • Constructing a Case: The Role of the Prime Minister • Role of Deputy Prime Minister: Supporting the Case • Examples of Cases • Interactive practices 2

3. Constructing a Case: The Role of the Prime Minister • Analyze the motion • Define and interpret the motion • Present a model of the motion • Create a case for the motion 3

4. Constructing a Case: Analyze the Motion • Focus attention on different ways to interpret the motion • Focus attention on what should be expected • Focus attention on the type of motion 4

5. Constructing a Case:Defining and Interpreting • 1st Government team has the right to define and interpret the motion. • 1st Government team has the responsibility to do so in a reasonable manner • Defining: Ambiguous terms in the motion • Interpreting: Narrowing the motion for debate 5

6. Constructing a Case:Defining Ambiguous Terms • Does the motion include terms that might be unclear? • Motion: “Israel should change its policies toward Palestinians.” • Definition: “Palestinians” include citizens of the West Bank and Gaza as well as Arab citizens of the State of Israel. 6

7. Constructing a Case:Interpreting the Motion • Interpreting the motion means narrowing it for the purposes of debate. • Motion: “Israel should change its policies toward Palestinians.” • Interpretation: For the purposes of this debate we will interpret (narrow) the motion to include only Arab citizens of the State of Israel. 7

8. Presenting the Model of the Motion • If the motion is about assigning value, then the model simply needs to be a clear statement of the focus and direction for the debate. • If the motion is about a policy or action, then model should contain at least three things: • actor • proposed action • other details 8

9. Constructing Arguments to Support the Model • Principled arguments, usually grounded in morals and ethics, focus on the inherent rightness or wrongness of an action • Consequential arguments, grounded in the effects or outcomes of policies or actions. 9

10. Principled Arguments to Support a Motion • Motion: Mohandas Gandhi was one of the world's greatest leaders • Description: Mohandas Gandhi employed civil disobedience throughout his life. • Association: Civil disobedience supports the principle of non-violence. • Evaluation: Non-violence is one of the most important principles the world has ever known. 10

11. Consequential Arguments to Support a Motion • Motion: Mao Zedong was one of the world’s greatest leader • Description: Mao Zedong created the Chinese Communist Party. • Association:The Chinese Communist Partyraised the standard of living for millions of Chinese citizens. • Evaluation: Few people in the world have had such positive effects on the livesof millions of people. 11

12. Role of Deputy Prime Minister • Providing refutation (Later lesson on refutation) • Add something new to the case, like a new principled argument, a new consequential argument, or more detailed support for an existing argument 12

13. Examples of Cases

14. Case Construction Exercise