Middle School Debate

Middle School Public Debates

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This page contains resources for teaching Middle school debate. These files are mostly saved as 'pdf' files, viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader. Get it here.

Introductory Materials

• Basic Skills Summary Sheet (pdf)
• Cost-Benefit Graphic Organizer (pdf)
• 12-Week Debate Unit Plan (Word Document) - Current version is 2.0
• Debate Topics Drawn from Social Science Content Standards (for middle and high school)

Materials for Learning the Event

• Introduction to the MSPDP Rules (pdf)
• Debating in the MSPDP Format (pdf)
• Introduction to Debate (pdf)

Materials for Preparing Students to Debate

• Taking Notes in Debates (pdf)
• Sample Flowsheet for Note-taking (pdf)
• MSPDP "Cheat Sheet" (pdf)
• Teaching A-R-E Handout (pdf)
• A-R-E Practice Chart (pdf)
• Handout for Teaching Refutation (pdf)
• 4-Step Refutation Overhead Template (pdf)
• Issue Analysis Form (Word document)

Materials for Judging Debates

• MSPDP Judging Manual (pdf)
• Sample Ballot (pdf)
• Online Ballot-Writing Clinic

Materials for Managing a Team

• Portfolio Organization Checklist (Word Document)
• Sample Parent Guidelines (Word Document)

Issue Briefs for In-Class Debates

These documents, saved as "pdf" files, are issue briefs designed to help students get started having debates in class on a variety of issues. The briefs contain short summaries of arguments for and against a given motion for debate. They can also be used as templates to help students organize their own debate research in helpful ways.

• Cellular phones should be allowed in schools .
• Television is a bad influence.
• State lotteries should be ended.
• Schools should not support competitive interscholastic sports.
• The United States should significantly increase space exploration.
• Human cloning should be permitted in the United States.
• School should be year-round.
• The United States should ban the death penalty.
• Junk food should be banned in schools.
• California should eliminate its "three strikes" law.
• The United States should lower the voting age.