Assignment/Activity
Title— Debates Year— Sophomore
Skill— Public Performance, group dynamics, writing,
research
Portfolio Category—
Media and Communication
For the debates I chose the topic of
corporal punishment in schools. I argued the affirmative which was continuing
the use of corporal punishment in school. Arguing affirmative for this topic
was difficult because is not something that I personally believe in as an
effective means of disciplining children because neither my partner or I
believed in corporal punishment at first we decided that the best way to
convince everyone else of our side was to convince ourselves that what we were
arguing was right which required research. I knew almost nothing about corporal
punishment to begin this project so starting off the research was basic, as we
learned more about the basics we moved on to specific cases and protection
under the constitution and smaller more in depth topics. The research was
difficult because we needed to find arguments not only for my own side but for
our opponent’s side, and information to refute those statements. One thing that
this whole debate taught me was that a person can argue for anything and that
there are some facts to argue for each side.
This debate was the second debate that I
have done the first was in the eighth grade, this debate was a lot more formal
and a lot longer than the one we did then and the actual debate was very
nerve-racking. I was the first affirmative so I had to deliver the first five
minute constructive speech which presented most of our arguments but also had
to use some ethos. The speech was difficult to write because I had too much
information for five minutes so I needed to cut it down to fit the five minute
time limit. I also knew that before speaking I would probably get nervous,
which I did, to prepare I practiced my speech over and over again and during
the debate I delivered it well. I was
nervous before we began as was my partner but when I began to speak I felt calm
and confident about what I was saying. In the future I need to improve on
fidgeting less while speaking and making even more eye contact with the
audience but overall after I was done I felt like I did an excellent job. I liked
the rebuttals part of the debate because it was exciting to hear our opponents
use arguments that we were already prepared for and have information to refute
those statements. The rebuttals were also one of the most challenging parts
because you had to be attentive to what the other side was saying and when
delivering it had to be firm and knowledgeable about the subject. The best part
of the debate was the cross examination because our opponent did not know what
point we were trying to make with the questions and we were able to manipulate
them into making an argument for our side.
In the future the skills involved in
this debate will always be important because it taught me about public speaking
and how to get people on your side and that will be applicable to any field of
work. We were not able to win this debate but we had a hard side to argue and
here it is not something many people go for so making it close was satisfying.
I want to include this in my portfolio
because I think it was a huge step in my researching and public speaking
abilities. We did really in-depth and complete research and one of the most
exciting things about it was that we were able to find small details and were
able to do more research on them and make them large topics in our debates. I
could really tell the difference in my public speaking as well, I felt a lot
more calm and confident while I was speaking and felt as if I had command of
the room which was a huge leap from last year.
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