Debate
Overview
When preparing for and debating with peers, students analyze, form, and express verbal arguments, fostering their critical thinking and literacy skills. In preparation for a debate, students research their topics and examine their evidence, practicing Critical Literacy and Argumentative Reasoning to form their persuasive arguments.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this high school teacher uses philosophical chairs to discuss a text they are reading. Through the debate, the students pay attention to the details of the text and provide evidence to support their argument. Structuring the activity with norms around language and evidence, including sentence frames, fosters their Composition and Argumentative Reasoning.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how Kialo supports debate by creating a clear structure with claims on both sides for a thesis statement. With collaborative features like marking the relevance of the argument or asking for clarification, students can refine and bolster their arguments, building their Argumentative Reasoning.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Active Learning Strategies
Physically acting out a text or enacting major themes from texts enhances reading comprehension, particularly as texts become more complex.
For adolescent learners, the Composition process can become more robust, as learners begin to express ideas through multiple media, which includes visual, audio, and digital production.
When students express information visually, they are activating more cognitive processes while problem solving and increasing their experience with alternate texts.
During reading, giving students the opportunity to explain their thinking process aloud allows them to recognize the strategies they use, solidify their comprehension, and move knowledge into their Long-term Memory.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Games help students practice their literacy skills in a fun, applied context.
When students write from a non-dominant or marginalized perspective, they consider and give voice to points of view that are often missing.
Project-based learning (PBL) actively engages learners in authentic tasks designed to create products that answer a given question or solve a problem.
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question.
