Saturday, June 9, 2007
The Debate is no more
I can see that we are all glad that the debate is behind us now. I am honestly surprised that I got as high a grade that I did. I had all the basic issues out lined in my introduction which is probably why I did as well as I did. Unfortunately my presentation was poor. I am curios why the Professor had us do a debate. I do not feel that I got that much out of it as far as learning goes. I do however feel that the research paper taught me allot, both about the subject that I wrote about as well as the process of writing.
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2 comments:
I'm sorry the debate didn't seem more educational to you, Wag. Here's my theories about its value, and the results are open to everyone's comment.
A major part of essay writing is conducting a written argument. Now, I mean argument in as soft and polite a way as possible here, but that does not make it one bit less true. As one examines one's thesis statement and decides what needs support, one must ask oneself the same things that a debater needs to decide before going into a debate:
* What needs explaining
* What someone could twist another way
* What is controversial
* Where a reader might have different base assumptions, and what information might repair that.
So I figured I had two options. One was to lecture at length about distinctions in logical format. The other was to give the class a project that would require that the class experience these things.
I figured that part of the nice thing about a debate is that one actually gets to hear the objections to one's own position without having to think of them onself.
Another practical point was the 4+ hour class time. I wanted to reduce the whole professor-talks-at-class thing to as few total hours as possible.
My presentation wasn't so good. I thought you did a great job! Practice makes perfect..right? Good Luck on the final!
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