Summer SAVY Session 1, Day 2 – The Great Debate
Day 2: Good evening families and great debaters!
Today we started out with some review Trivia (two teams got the blog hint from yesterday) before moving on to learn about the three Aristotelian appeals of pathos, logos, and ethos. Ask your debater about this key triangle of rhetoric and how it can be applied to help pursue – or dismantle – an argument. We also discovered the importance of studying, evaluating, and analyzing the debates of others in order to help us improve our own. We created rubrics and practiced being unbiased adjudicators as we watched, discussed, and provided feedback on a video of a middle school debate about whether computers or books are better for students. We found that each of the observed teams had strengths and weaknesses, but that the Opposition team displayed better synthesis and professionalism. After lunch, we found out who the characters in our shipwreck from yesterday are – characters ranging from Yoda to Sherlock Holmes to Alexander the Great (and even some not-so-nice mermaids and Dora the Explorer!). We used diplomacy, teamwork, and the rhetorical strategies we learned in the morning to argue for the best possible combination of three characters to send to the Island. We evaluated each other’s debating skills and selected the team we felt had best utilized the rhetorical triangle. Congratulations team Ratatouille! I was really impressed with EVERYONE’S growth after just one day and can’t wait to continue our debating adventure with y’all tomorrow.
Trivia treasure hunt hint: There is a debate vocabulary word in here that we haven’t yet discussed in class. It might be helpful to invessssstigate it!