Intelligence Squared Debate
For this debate project we were asked to choose from four topics, drones in the Middle East, Syrian refugees, enhanced interrogation, and government surveillance. Once we chose a topic we chose a side to debate for. I chose drones and debated against the motion. After this I researched about drones in the middle east in order to collect as much evidence as I could find to backup my claims. My teammates and I then organized our notes and chose what we were going to say during the actual debate. There were 4 roles in the debate, affirmative constructive argument, negative constructive argument, affirmative constructive argument 2, negative constructive argument 2, affirmative rebuttal, negative rebuttal, affirmative rebuttal 2, and negative rebuttal. I chose to do the negative constructive argument 2. I had to make a speech full of arguments and evidence. I basically had to throw all our arguments on our opponents in one juicy speech. I formulated my evidence and memorized a speech I wrote. Once my teammates and I were done preparing we went in front of the class and debared against the motion. I felt like I did a good job on my constructive and because of it, my teammates and I won the debate. After we finished the initial debates we chose the roles we would want to do at the all school exhibition. During the all school exhibition there would be two debates about the most popular topics. I wanted to be a researcher for the drones debate but that soon changed and I did the second negative rebuttal for drones. This job was a little stressful but after the research and communication with my group I'm proud with the final result.
Before this project I never really knew where I stood on the drone program. I didn't disagree with it but I also didn't know too much about it. When I chose to debate against it I started shift my opinion. I researched a ton and watched debates about the drone program and I found it absurd that the U.S government is using these drones with such low regulation. I got really into this topic and was kind of excited to debate because I really understood my reasoning to debate against the motion. Also, not only did I learn about my topic but I learned from the different topics that were being debated. It really helped understand the situation in the Middle East and how terrorism has taken over. I now feel like I am very educated about this topic as a whole after this debate project.
When we were first told about this project I was a little freaked out because debating in front of a large group of people does not sound very appealing. But when I did my speech on debate day I felt really confident with my public speaking skills. By practicing my speech over and over it helped with my memorization and speaking skills. When I did my first run through of my speech I stuttered and stumbled on my words over and over. Also, I had a hard time finding my evidence because it was really unorganized. But after a few run throughs I was really confident with my performance and had most of my evidence memorized and organized.
Before this project I never really knew where I stood on the drone program. I didn't disagree with it but I also didn't know too much about it. When I chose to debate against it I started shift my opinion. I researched a ton and watched debates about the drone program and I found it absurd that the U.S government is using these drones with such low regulation. I got really into this topic and was kind of excited to debate because I really understood my reasoning to debate against the motion. Also, not only did I learn about my topic but I learned from the different topics that were being debated. It really helped understand the situation in the Middle East and how terrorism has taken over. I now feel like I am very educated about this topic as a whole after this debate project.
When we were first told about this project I was a little freaked out because debating in front of a large group of people does not sound very appealing. But when I did my speech on debate day I felt really confident with my public speaking skills. By practicing my speech over and over it helped with my memorization and speaking skills. When I did my first run through of my speech I stuttered and stumbled on my words over and over. Also, I had a hard time finding my evidence because it was really unorganized. But after a few run throughs I was really confident with my performance and had most of my evidence memorized and organized.