The Atlanta Urban Debate League is committed to providing excellent debate education programs, services, and opportunities to diverse students, educators, and members of the community!
Middle School JV Curriculum Guide
Moving up to Varsity
Skills You Should Have Developed Before Advancing to Varsity
Finishing in the top 25% of Junior Varsity teams is a sign of overall success. Here are some signs that you’ve developed the core skills of Junior Varsity debate.
You fit every argument that you need to make into your speech time, and you use all of your prep time. Also, you and your partner don’t take 1NR prep time.
You pick and choose what arguments are most important when writing your rebuttals.
You ask the judge questions before the debate round and, you pay attention to what they’re doing during the round.
You can conduct evidence comparison (ABCD).
You flow on multiple sheets of paper during each speech, and you flow during your partner’s speeches.
Skills You’ll Develop In Varsity
Researching and producing evidence - Varsity debaters are allowed and encouraged to replace or supplement individual arguments in the evidence packet. While you will not be able to introduce a completely new affirmative case or negative off-case position, you will learn how to do targeted research and turn that research into individual pieces of evidence.
New negative off-case positions - Varsity debates may include counterplans and kritiks, which let the negative advocate for their own change to the status quo to weigh against the affirmative plan. Counterplans and kritiks have their own structures, and kritiks in particular have more abstract content to learn.
Get started with the Varsity Curriculum Guide!