Let’s Get Ready to Debate!

I interrupt this usual stream of World Literature feed, for a little debating!

A few years ago, my district’s curriculum called for an informal debate this week. However, I cannot just have the same tired debates like they have had in years past. 2020 was a weird time for all of us in the classroom (students and teachers alike).

Whenever I could take a moment to lift the mood, I did. So, I leaned into the curve a little bit and created this Hot Seat Debate activity.

This activity was a great deal of fun for all. Students were called to the front and they had to blindly choose if they would be pro or against the topic once it came on the board.

Once they have chosen their side, I put the topic on the board and they had 30 seconds to formulate their argument in their minds before the timer was started. Each side has 60 seconds for opening arguments and then 30 seconds if they wished to rebut.

The rapid fire with no prep is what makes it a “hot seat” debate.

Some of the debate topics:

• Pirates are better than ninjas
• Pineapple belongs on pizza
• The witch in Hansel and Gretel is the real victim
• Pumpkin spice latte or peppermint mochas?

As you can see, none of these topics are overly “serious”, so it was a great deal of fun and the winner was often the one who could make us all laugh the most. However, it was a great way to lean into formulating and supporting arguments quickly.

If you are also finding yourself needing to spice up your class with a fun pro/con debate activity, please feel free to download today for FREE. I hope that it livens up your classrooms as much as it did for mine!

What was really great was when I circled back to debate at the end of the unit. For the unit, I focused on the rhetorical strategies seen in Acts I-III of Julius Caesar and we had a great discussion on the justifications of the assassins.

However, I knew I wanted to end on another cold(ish) debate and I settled on having my students analyze Baby It’s Cold Outside and debating on it. This involved two opposing articles to aid in formulating their positions and the results were amazing! You can check out more details in this post!