Growing Pains: Coaching and Being a Second Year Policy Debater
This article was originally published in the December 2010 edition of the Rostrum.
As I am flying to the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas tournament, I am talking to my second year debaters at the airport about what strategies they have put together for their potential opponents. As a coach, taking students to the Sophomore Hoe Down gives me a chance to focus on skill building for this precocious yet relatively inexperienced group. For the last three summers, I have worked with “rising sophomores” at debate institute and have learned a lot about some of the needs of this experience level.
For most hard-working and focused students, their second year of debating is the most painful. They may work for several hours each week on their skills, but may not see any significant improvement in tournament win-loss records for at least another year. They help the older debaters research, but often do not receive the same level of respect or adoration that their older mentors sometimes receive. It can be a year of crestfallen egos and uncertainty.
Smoothing the Transition as a Coach or Peer Mentor
Second year debaters usually have the post-novice year glow. They are usually the students who stayed in debate because, during their first year, they won trophies and received significant encouragement from their coaches and peers. Then they start losing many debates because they are competing against students who are two to three years older than they are. Coaches and student mentors can help smooth this transition.
First, coaches and student mentors should debrief the second year debaters and let them know that this will be a year of growth, not winning. Resetting student goals on the process of improvement creates a healthier team atmosphere. This approach has been endorsed by several great coaches, including John Wooden, Bill Walsh, and Brad Gilbert. A student’s optimism to focus on individual skills is important to continuing a sense of pride and accomplishment in her/ his work because it is very possible for them to execute a single position or skill with care even when they may feel overwhelmed by a more experienced opponent. A focus on the details of the debate process will serve these students well in the long term since they will better understand how these smaller details can create a stable or unstable foundation for a debate round—e.g., speaking clarity affects judge’s perception of persuasiveness, framing and organization of rebuttal can affect writing of judge’s ballot, etc.
Second, a coach must decide whether a second year student is prepared to compete in the varsity division or the junior varsity division. Moving to the varsity division may act as a cold bucket of water on the sleepy face of a post-novice. I usually look at three primary factors when making this decision: (1) student work ethic, (2) student confidence, and (3) tournament/judging quality. If a student demonstrates significant confidence in their skills and backs that confidence up with hard work on research assignments and practice speaking sessions with their peers or with me, then I will immediately have them compete at the varsity level. These students gain little education from winning debates at the junior varsity level and should be challenged by more senior varsity debaters and judges. Attendance at debate camp usually means that a student is ready to compete at the varsity level. If I have a student who has not attended debate camp or generally is very timid and lacks confidence in their skills, they will usually compete in the junior varsity division for their first couple tournaments. These students need a couple of easier wins before they feel confident enough to debate at the varsity level. Another option for tournament competition that helps second year (and novice debaters) improve their skills is to pair them up with more advanced varsity debaters at a local tournament. The direct mentoring that occurs at these tournaments is invaluable because the student learns as an apprentice would—on the job. One caution: coaches should make sure that advanced varsity debaters understand their responsibility to help the younger student improve. Again, the goal is not to win, but to show marked improvement.
Third, coaches should tailor some lectures to the second year skill level. Second years who worked hard their novice year and attended some camp should be familiar with basic debate theory like the affirmative stock issues/burdens, types of permutations, types of counterplans, etc. However, they will need more lectures on advanced debate theory, e.g., intrinsicness, permutation against counterplans, and textual and functional competition theory.
Fourth, coaches must help second years cultivate their argumentative strategy, including understanding argument interaction and developing their ability to make accurate preround and mid-round argument predictions. They often see the utility and understand the theory of their arguments within a vacuum. The “bigger picture” eludes them in debate rounds because they tend to be more concerned on “getting through” their blocks. Double-turns are more likely to happen to overeager second years who want to add positions to their 1NC speeches without evaluating how it helps their strategy. They will add arguments to the 1NC as “time sucks,” not because it creates coherent strategy. In pre-round preparation, students need to take time to look at the overall strategy and consider how the positions they are reading interact with each other. I have students write down the 1NC on a sheet of paper and then ask them a couple of questions about it to help them notice particular argument interactions. Additionally, they need to calm their focus on minutiae by taking at least 15 seconds to look at all relevant flows at the beginning of their prep time for the final rebuttal. During this time, students should make a reasoned decision as to what should be in the rebuttal. Coaches can help students improve this thought process by asking students about their decisions regardless of whether the team won or lost the debate. Listening to the student’s explanation can help a coach diagnose strategic missteps and opens space for further coach/student interaction on strategic thinking. Asking regardless of a win or loss also helps the student feel that the conversation is not to reprimand bad decisions, but also to praise good decisions and neutrally create a productive conversation about arguments.
Furthermore, second years need to become more predictive in their preround and mid-round preparation. The reason that these skills are particularly difficult is that they require an extensive mental model of debate. The more complicated and accessible a student’s mental model is, the easier it is for them to predict responses. For example, knowing that a permutation is usually a test of competition means that the affirmative must disprove links to the net benefit, requiring the 2NC or 1NR to be prepared with link arguments or theory. Coaches can play devil’s advocates in strategy discussions to help students develop responses to strategies or arguments that they are working on.
Lastly, research skills should be limited to researching a single argument, not an overarching negative strategy, unless there is an expectation of significant coach or peer mentor guidance. Assigning one second year debater to a team’s affirmative without any guidance does not usually yield competitively useful results. One method I am trying this year for the first time is Research Teams. These research teams have a single research leader with multiple research members. My research leaders and members will evaluate each other at the end of each grading period, which helps me generate grades that reflect student work for my class and helps make the students accountable to each other as a team. When second year debaters feel confident on a topic, they can become a research leader on a particular assignment, so those ambitious students are not held back by this system. However, those students who are not can still create some productive work while also doing so in the safety of a larger mentor group.
To the Second Years: Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming
In cliff note form (because I know you have to read Macbeth or The Lord of the Flies for homework), here are ten tips for second year debaters reading this article:
Speaking work. Work on speaking clarity for about 15 minutes each night and do 10-minute drills where you speak your evidence for 10-minutes straight to help you build up endurance.
Narrow negative block. Other teams may be faster and more experienced, but if you can narrow the negative block by only going for one to two positions that you have blocked out and have practiced, you can minimize their advantage over you.
Find your argument niche. You should find the generic disadvantage, counterplan, or kritik that you are going to research and completely block for debates. This position should act as your “go to” position on the negative.
Experiment. While this sounds like it contradicts #3, this point means that you should have a “go to” position, but do not be afraid to try different strategies and topic specific arguments.
Accept failures. Learn from mistakes and proactively ask your coaches and judges about what you can do to fix mistakes you have made. Mistakes are expected and should not be hidden—it will only stunt your growth.
Shake off the emotional highs and lows. While it stinks to lose and it feels great to win, these should not dictate your mood. Skill improvement occurs much faster when you let go of these feelings and start working on the next debate or the next strategy or the next 2AC block. Wallowing or excessive celebration will only close you off mentally from growth. This point is much easier said than done.
Seek opportunities to help dedicated varsity debaters. Even if you are not going to the State Championships, TOC, NDCA Championships, NCFL Nationals or the NFL Championships, others on your team may be going. Their performance at these championships reflects the hard work of the individuals competing and of the team supporting them, so contribute as a team member.
Watch elimination rounds. Try to keep up flowing and basic skills by watching debate rounds as much as possible. Try to find a role model in debate elimination rounds. Every great debater has influences; find your influences.
Encourage your peers. You are all in this together if you are lucky. The more competitive your peers are, the better the team can be. Practice rounds should not be significantly easier than the rounds you are having at debate tournaments.
Debate, debate, debate. Attend as many tournaments as possible. Second year students who turn up their nose at attending tournaments are depriving themselves of learning to adapt and advance. Second year debaters who eagerly accept as many invitations as possible to compete are the ones I have found that progress the most quickly.
Christina Tallungan is a former high school and college Policy debater. She was the Director of Debate at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, IL, from 2005-2009. She is currently the Director of Debate at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, CA