Language Arts

1. Language Arts • Journal: • What kind of movies are your favorite? • Explain. • Compare those to the type of books you like to read. • Do you choose books the same way you choose the movies you watch?

2. Elements of Debate Academic debates have four basic elements. They are the proposition, the affirmative side, the negative side and the audience who serve as judges. Political debates, such as those held between presidential candidates, are only slightly different. Instead of a proposition a political debate has a number of questions from a moderator, the sides of the debate are not locked into a specific position and the audience doesn't judge between the candidates until election day.

3. Proposition or Resolution • The proposition, also sometimes called the resolution, is the subject for debate. It is presented by the moderator in the form of a statement. For example, the resolution might state, "Resolved: The United States should have entered World War II earlier than it did." The two sides in the debate then take up alternate positions on the question and attempt to convince the audience that the statement made is either true or false.

4. Affirmative • The affirmative side of the debate takes the position that the statement made is true. Each side is typically provided with the question or statement to be debated well in advance of the debate and researches the statement to find facts that support it. In addition they research the arguments that their opponents are likely to make so that they have counterarguments prepared. So, given the example above, the affirmative team will look for benefits that might have come to the United States or the world had the U.S. entered World War II earlier than it did.

5. Negative • In the example given, the negative side would take the opposite position and attempt to show reasons why it would have been a mistake for the U.S. to enter the war earlier than it did. It is the job of the negative side to show that the proposition is false. Like the positive side, the negative side researches all possible arguments, including the ones that do not support their position. Seasoned debaters strategize about when in the debate which arguments should be made.

6. Audience • In academic debate neither side is allowed to interrupt the other. The debate moderator alternates between one side and the other, gives them specific blocks of time and holds them to those times. The audience evaluates the the arguments of the two sides. Whether it is by the audience itself or by selected judges, each side is rated based on its arguments. This does not mean that one side is right and the other is wrong, or even that the judges agree with one side or another. The winner is decided solely on who made the best arguments and did the best job of countering the other side's arguments. The questions chosen are typically designed to have no right or wrong answer.