Policy Debate Workshops

We offer 2, 3, and 4 week programs. See our options by clicking on the links to the left!

Workshops should be designed to improve skills.  When students arrive at a debate institute, they want to become better debaters.  Too many institutes in policy debate have taken the easy way out. 

A great deal of emphasis at the beginning of the year seems to be placed on the use of institute evidence, rather than original research.  We know the quality of the evidence we have produced over the years speaks for itself.  It is certainly possible to use all of the evidence produced by the institute to debate the entire season; however, while institute evidence should provide the basis for practice debates during the summer, it cannot sustain competitive policy debaters through the year.  While it's true that last year's labs produced one of the most outstanding sets of evidence in the nation, including more than 70 files and 8,000 pages, we feel this can be accomplished without sacrificing what you learn as a debater.

The easy way out?  Not us...

While it is very easy for any college debater to monitor vast numbers of research assignments, it is something different entirely for experienced teachers to enable students in improving their own skills. We will perform research sufficient to get you started, and labs will not duplicate the work of others. Each lab will be dedicated, in a squad-like fashion, to laying the groundwork for the topic and fully preparing for a competitive tournament.  We will offer you the evidence needed as a foundation for further research, but we feel that at Mean Green Workshops you are also offered something more...

What am I doing here?

We believe we are a part of a shift in the trend of policy debate institutes successful on the national level.  Our focus will include research, but will be more heavily dedicated to monitored skill development.  The purpose of our policy workshops is to enable students to apply critical thinking skills in the development of debate skills, not to produce thousands of pages of useless blocks. 

We will have lectures designed to increase broad topic knowledge, lectures designed to address general concerns for improving debaters (both Advanced and Basic versions of each lecture will be offered), and elective lectures offering teachers the ability to demonstrate specialties, we will also have organized practice & skill development sessions designed to offer individualized instruction far beyond what is provided in even some of the best post-round critiques.

Specifically...

Topics of lecture and practice (in addition to topic-focused study) include, but are not limited to: Library and Internet Research, Writing a Disadvantage, Debating Kritiks, Rebuttal effectiveness, Writing an Affirmative, Debating the Case, Outstanding Speaking, Developing Negative Strategy, Judge Adaptation, Cross-Examination, Technical Debating, Theory, Division of the Negative Block, Time Allocation, Pre-empting the 2AR, and more.

The goal of the workshops is also to produce students who are balanced in their approach to debates, who understand the value of outstanding research and skill development occurring simultaneously, who are able to effectively "kritik" and debate "disads," and who develop a strong work ethic based on a commitment to self-improvement.

• All policy debate programs will maintain at least an 8 to 1 ratio of students to faculty.
• Our novice program, for students who have never debated, will be offered during the 2-week session. 
• Students must have completed 7th grade to enter one of our programs.