5 Exercises to Debate Successfully
The 5 exercises to debate can help you speak spontaneously and develop specific skills to stay alert and focused on your arguments.
In classrooms or debate practices, these activities are designed to be short 10-12 minute exercises before going into a more involved debate or discussion. If time is limited, it is also possible to not do a debate at all and just do one or two of these exercises with more repetitions, followed by a debrief discussion about what everyone felt like they improved.
Justify It
One person says that a certain statement is true (they don’t have to believe it), such as “Gorillas would make great pets.” The other person has to respond by saying why this statement is true, such as “Totally! Gorillas can help you reach things up high and they always have bananas, which are a great source of potassium.”
Switch roles with new statements each time. For more difficulty, you can increase the number of reasons you have to give.
Devil’s Advocate
This is similar to “Justify It”, except that after one person makes a statement, the other person responds on the other side with an opposing statement, starting with “To play devil’s advocate…”
For instance, if one person said “Gorillas would make great pets”, the other person would say, “To play devil’s advocate, gorillas would not make great pets because they are wild and unpredictable and could pose a great deal of danger.”
This activity can be done individually by putting statements on index cards and responding to them as you draw them out of a hat.
Blow up the Balloon
In a circle or small group, one person makes an statement (i.e. “Traffic in the Bay Area is at an all-time high.). The next person adds on by saying, “which leads to…” and the next person adds on by saying, “which leads to…” Each result should be increasingly bigger and more impactful to “blow up the balloon”.
Practice stating short and long term impacts.
Talking Code
Have someone discuss 2-3 arguments about any simple prompt (i.e. “Spring is better than summer.”). Listeners take notes using as few full, real words as possible — the goal is to try use abbreviations, symbols, and codes to represent ideas.
Practice fast note-taking.
This activity can be done easily in pairs, but can also be in a whole group.
Quick Outlines
Give everyone a topic and set a timer for 4 minutes for them to silently outline 2-3 arguments on both sides. Repeat with a new topic, but this time set a timer for 3 minutes to outline both sides.
Keep repeating with new topics, but reduce the outline preparation time each time.
Practice quick outlining skills and avoiding perfectionism. This activity can be done in any size group or in pairs.
