Hello and welcome back to another blog post. The project we did this time was called “The Great Debaters” where we picked a topic that interested us, and debated someone on it. This was very fun project to do because I got to debate my friend Declan on the topic, “Be it resolved that money can buy happiness.” I argued the affirmative and Declan argued the negative.
You can watch the full debate here ⬇️
Driving Question: How can we use a formal debate to convince an audience we’re right?
The first assignment within this project was convincing paragraph with the prompt of: “The best ____ ever” I chose to write about Whistler being the best mountain ever. We worked on this assignment for a few weeks working on proper paragraph structure, adding things that evoked ethos and pathos, and making the piece as convincing as possible.
The next part of this project was to produce a research page. It was to consist of a few reliable sources that we could get information from for our debates. I came across a few articles with important studies and a very good informative Youtube video. The purpose of this research page was to make sure we were getting real facts and studies through trustable sources.
The next stage of this project was to finalize your speeches. I wrote my opening statements, potential rebuttal points, and final remarks. After a couple weeks of perfecting and getting feedback on my work, it was time to start practicing the oral part of this project. As the exhibition day got closer, I kept on reviewing and practicing delivering my debate. When the day itself came, I did my best against my opponent, but fell short in at the very end.
Answer to the Driving Question:
In conclusion, you can use a formal debate to convince an audience you’re right by researching a topic very thoroughly, being prepared to listen to your opponent and critically think about a subject, and lastly, being confident enough in yourself and your reasoning.