Middle School Varsity Curriculum Guide

Welcome to Middle School Varsity!

Wow, you’ve made it all the way to the Varsity division! Working your way here from Novice is an accomplishment, and you should be proud just to be here. But now that you are here – what’s it like?

What’s Different in Varsity?

  • You’ll get more arguments than in Junior Varsity, including additional affirmatives, disadvantages, and advantages. It’ll be your job to stay on top of things!

  • You’ll have even better judging. Varsity rounds get the most experienced judges at tournaments, such as college debaters, so you can trust your judge to have evaluated similar rounds many times before.

What’s the Same in Varsity?

  • Debates still follow the same speech order.

  • You’ll still have access to the same kinds of arguments: advantages, disadvantages, and counterplans.

  • You’ll still have to debate four rounds – two affirmative, and two negative – at each debate tournament.

  • You’ll still use your evidence packet and tournament workbook.

  • You’ll still be reading, speaking, taking notes, and asking questions (or answering them).

Table of Contents

Reviewing Junior Varsity

PART 1: New Skills

  1. Multiple Worlds

  2. The Counterplan

  3. Answering the Counterplan

  4. (OLD/Archive - this is NOT currently available for MS Varsity) The Kritik

  5. (OLD/Archive - this is NOT currently available for MS Varsity) Answering the Kritik

  6. (OLD/Archive - this is NOT currently available for MS Varsity) Research and Evidence Production

PART 2: Developing Skills

  1. More on Choosing Arguments

  2. Varsity Speech Checklist

  3. Judge Instruction