Summer SAVY, Session 6 Day 3, Individuality vs Conformity (3rd – 4th)
Hello SAVY families!
It’s the middle of the week and time for us to think practically about how to engage and employ our individualities, personalities, and unique skills to persuade, inspire, and contribute to the world around us. That means today and our last two days will involve afternoon projects where we get to work together in ways where we learn as teams how to highlight and leverage each person’s unique skills to build diverse and unstoppable teams!
Today we learned about the art of strong argumentation and persuasion. We studied the foundations of debate structure and brainstormed about the kind of skills great leaders and persuaders have. We also thought about the many roles that may seem a bit more behind the scenes but are just as, if not more, important to get great speakers and persuaders to the metaphoric (and physical) stage. For example: the skills of the statisticians, researchers, and data analyzers who create rigorous content; the evaluative and decisive skills required of adjudicators and moderators; the constructive and defensive abilities of interlocuters –and these are only a few among many other roles that people’s individuality and strengths make them ideal for in life and careers!
Guess what came next? That’s right! A slew of flash activities to put ourselves to the test and find where we would best fit on a winning debate team! After lunch, it all came together as our two teams of debaters and our team of excellent moderators prepared for an intense debate about whether the voting age should be lowered in the United States.
Wow, wow, wow, did all the teams excel in their roles and contribute to fiercely strong teams? Our affirmative side, voting for a lower voting age, made excellent points about the ingenuity, abilities, and stakes that young people should have in the future. Our opposing team provided some great research and strong arguments to persuade us that, perhaps, young people may not be able to or should not have to take on such a heavy responsibility, considering the neuroscience of impulsivity and brain development – and how a younger electorate might change candidate platforms and lead to the neglect of issues that are important to older voters with heavier responsibilities. Our two students who took on rebuttals had to think on their feet and find quick, impassioned, and concise ways to refute the other side’s claims. Both teams had strong opening and closing statements that used pathos, ethos, and logos, and it was such a close call! Even our moderators didn’t fully agree – but they came up with a rigorous rubric that judged the teams on ten categories, and they were thoughtful, unbiased, and precise. Ask your students about the results and to share some of the positive feedback they received and things they think they could improve on. And if your student was one of our moderators, ask them about how they brainstormed to come up with such a comprehensive rubric!
Bonus question hints for students: There are three brand new vocabulary words from today in this blog – can you find and define them? I didn’t use italics as a hint this time so look closely!
Until tomorrow,
Ms. Rho