Debate Across the Curriculum

SUMMER INSTITUTE

20101

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

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Participating Schools

Boston Latin Academy Dorchester Academy Media Communications High School

Brighton High School East Boston High School New Mission High School

Brook Farm Academy English High School Odyssey High School

Jeremiah Burke High School Josiah Quincy Upper School Urban Science Academy

Charlestown High School

Our MissionTo measurably improve students’ academic achievement and their expectations of themselves by creating a debate league that engages as many BPS middle and high school students as possible.

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PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The Boston Debate League is a non-profit organization that partners with the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in order to transform school culture through academic debate. We support BPS’ aspirations for schools to become true places of learning where academically rigorous thinking, reading, speaking, and working together is the norm. The BDL organizes debate teams in participating schools, training BPS teachers to recruit and coach their students. Each school year, we host six city-wide debate tournaments, after-school seminars on college campuses, a summer debate institute, professional development to help teachers use debate in their regular classrooms, and connect BPS students with mentors from colleges, law schools, Black Law Student Associations, law firms, and other professional organizations.

The BDL also supports the Debate Across the Curriculum Initiative in 4-6 schools each year. These schools also have after-school debate teams. In DAC, the Boston Debate League aims to go deeper with building a debate culture by providing professional development to teachers that helps teachers build critical literacy, advocacy, and public speaking skills in their students during the regular school day in their science, math, English, and social studies classes.

BDL and DAC

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Imagine a Biology classroom where…Students stand two at a time in cross-examination. One student from Team Protein asks the student from Team Carbohydrate if she really believes that something as damaging as the carbohydrates commonly found in American junk food could really be the most important organic compound found in the human body. The defending student counters with evidence about the various important roles carbohydrates play in basic bodily functions. She turns the questions on the cross-examiner and asks what exactly proteins do in the body.

Resolved: Which organic compound is most important?

(proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, or nucleic acids)

Debate is often the first time students feel that they are being asked to participate in their own education. The teacher listens to them on so do their classmates. This is DAC.

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Imagine a Geometry classroom where…Students peer over each other’s shoulders to examine notes, searching for the best arguments to use in their opening statements. They debate with teammates about which piece of evidence to lead with and how to advocate for their position in the debate using the evidence in their textbooks and in the research reviewed by the group. They speculate on the attacks coming from other teams in the debate and plan how to best defend their position. Students on all teams prepare notecards that will form the backbone of their speeches. The debate begins with the resolution announced:

What is the best shape for a house: rhombus, square, rectangle, parallelogram, or kite? Team Rhombus approaches the front of the room for opening statements, and as the first speech begins, students quickly begin to record their debate notes while scanning their own team’s evidence, preparing for their opportunity to attack and then advocate for their team’s position… The competitive, student-centered nature of debate motivates these students to embrace an activity that is academically rigorous and rewards intellectualism. This is DAC.