Wisconsin Forensics Daily

Thursday Thing To Read: Small School Success

This week’s Thursday Thing To Read discusses some of the ways that debaters from small programs can succeed at the highest levels of policy debate. Bill Batterman, an assistant policy debate coach at Marquette University High School, outlines several areas where “small schools” can overcome the structural disadvantages that make entering the elite levels of our activity so difficult for those without strong institutional support. A graduate of West Bend East, Bill draws on his experience as a highly-competitive policy debater for a program with only one card-cutter as well as his time as a coach at Nicolet, Appleton East, and Marquette to develop and share some tips for how to hang with the powerhouses.

Best of luck to everyone competing at this weekend’s WDCA State Tournament of Champions. WFD will be providing live coverage from South Milwaukee High School beginning on Friday afternoon.

Small School Success:
Tips For Competing At The Highest Levels Of Policy Debate
By Bill Batterman

An important element of many discussions of high school policy debate and its future in Wisconsin center on the gap between the proverbial “haves” and the “have-nots,” those programs with dozens of debaters, excellent coaching, and healthy budgets and those without. Unquestionably, policy debate presents significant barriers to entry and students blessed to debate for strong, established programs have many advantages over their peers from less-fortunate squads. Given this environment, is it possible for small programs to compete at the highest levels of policy debate in Wisconsin?

History, it would seem, answers in the affirmative. While a review of the top teams in our state over the past decade reveals many powerhouse schools like Brookfield Central and Marquette, it also includes debaters from small programs like Hortonville, Janesville Craig, and West Bend East as well as upstart programs like Madison West. The accomplishments of students from these squads demonstrate that however difficult, it is possible to compete without the advantages that large programs provide.

While the debate community should continue to pursue reforms that decrease barriers to entry, it is also important to help those debaters currently competing for small programs to succeed despite the obstacles they face. My own experience both as a debater at a very small program and as a coach for squads of varying sizes and with varying resources has afforded me what I feel are unique and meaningful insights into the requirements for achieving success in our activity. What follows is an attempt to share some of the most important lessons I’ve learned about competing for a small program. While this list is by no means comprehensive, it is my hope that these tips will help “small school” debaters make the most of their participation in the activity and assist them in reaching their goals.

If You Can’t Outwork Your Opponents, Out-Organize Them

Programs with a large number of advanced debaters and card-cutting coaches can produce substantially greater quantities of evidence than can small programs with only a limited number of researchers. That much is certain. One of the best ways for small programs to compete in spite of this often sizable disparity is to maximize the utility of the research they are able to accomplish. If a team has only two card-cutters, for example, it is of vital importance that they coordinate their efforts and carefully choose where to focus their research. While large programs can make due without centralized assignment coordination and still end up with enough evidence to compete, small programs must concentrate their efforts on those positions which provide them with a maximum return on investment.

Instead of committing to horizontal work (researching a broad range of positions superficially), smart debaters engage in vertical work that they can then use in a wide variety of their rounds. The most obvious example of this kind of research philosophy is mastery of one’s affirmative case; by digging in and engaging the literature surrounding one’s affirmative, a small program can make use of their research in a full fifty-percent of their debates. Even if large programs will have access to case negatives, the time and effort spent researching one’s affirmative will provide a substantial edge to the debaters who have read the original source material and who have kept up with the literature throughout the year.

The concept of vertical research can be applied to the negative as well. Even the largest programs have difficulty keeping up with the large number of cases that are run during the season; for small schools, such an effort is utterly futile. When deciding the positions in which to invest one’s precious research time, choose those arguments that will have broad applicability and which can be supplemented with related arguments to construct strong case-specific strategies. While this advice is often construed as “pick a generic critique and roll with it all year,” the decision to prefer critical strategies to more traditional policy-oriented ones is not a requirement for small schools. On the 2005-2006 civil liberties topic, for example, debaters could choose to focus their original research efforts on a terrorism disadvantage (which links to most cases and which can be tweaked in creative ways) or on an agent counterplan and disadvantage (like Executive Order and Presidential Powers). Having a few core arguments in one’s arsenal provides a strong foundation on which to build winning negative strategies.

In addition to organizing one’s own research, smart debaters will emphasize organization of their secondary research as well. Obtaining summer institute files has become increasingly easy with the rise in scanning and internet trading and so even the smallest programs should be able to procure the evidence sets from a few major institutes. Whereas large programs can distribute merging assignments and overhaul the majority of their camp evidence, small programs will need to make due with what they have. In order to do so, of course, one needs to know what one has—and that provides small programs with an opportunity to gain a strategic advantage over their peers. Knowing what evidence you do have can offset the advantage debaters from large programs have in sheer quantity of evidence; if they can’t locate the necessary cards or explain a strategy that a teammate or coach researched, the smart debater from a small program should be able to prevail based on their superior organization.

Small schools will never be able to keep up with the “Borg” programs when it comes to evidence production and research. Instead, they should rely on superior organization skills to maximize the utility of the evidence they do produce and make the most of their limited research time.

Forge Alliances With Similarly-Situated Programs

Small programs don’t have to go it alone. In many cases, particularly in Wisconsin, the opportunity exists for small programs to band together and form alliances for the purpose of sharing evidence and research assignments. Such coalitions can help bridge the research divide while strengthening relationships between committed debaters. While they are especially helpful for programs that travel to regional and national tournaments, alliances can also help teams who primarily debate on their local circuits.

For example, Crandon and Duluth could agree to share research assignments: Jim from Crandon and Bob from Duluth take care of the politics updates while Sue from Crandon works on critique answers and Sara from Duluth works on the terrorism disadvantage. An explicit arrangement should be made to avoid misunderstandings about what is expected and against whom the evidence can be read, but such a coalition between Crandon and Duluth effectively doubles both teams’ research squads. If the two teams debate one another, everything is fair game. In fact, such debates are often some of the most fun and challenging a debater will experience; I participated in such an arrangement while in high school and some of my most memorable debates came against my friends from the allied school.

Even if sharing evidence or research assignments is not for you, developing friendships with other small programs can help both parties gain more argument intelligence (lists and information about teams’ arguments and about judges’ preferences) and can help make the overall debate experience more enjoyable. When you and your partner are the only representatives from your school, debate tournaments can be a very lonely place, especially when you are first breaking in to a circuit. In addition to helping small squads remain competitive, alliances can radically increase a debater’s enjoyment of the community.

Take Advantage Of Every Opportunity To Learn

One of the most important disadvantages that debaters from small programs face is their lack of quality coaching. While some programs with minimal participation are blessed with outstanding coaches who are committed to developing top-level competitors, the vast majority of small squads do not have experienced coaches much less a staff of assistants and alumni. This lack of coaching, while a substantial impediment to success, is not damning. There are three major ways that small schools can exploit non-traditional coaching opportunities.

First, take careful notes during judges’ oral critiques and engage them in discussions about how to improve your debating. The vast majority of critics will be more than happy to help students from other programs improve and post-round discussions give debaters from even the smallest programs access to the best coaches in the activity. It’s easy to dismiss these opportunities; when a round is completed, debaters are tired, hungry, and often interested only in knowing whether they have won or lost. Students from small programs cannot afford to adopt this attitude even in circumstances where they feel that the judge has made a poor decision or when they are distracted by friends. Take the post-round portion of each debate as seriously as the round itself.

Second, watch top-level debaters and incorporate the best parts of their styles and techniques into your own debating. If you aren’t competing in the elimination rounds, watch the best teams and take copious notes. When possible, copy down the citations for evidence that other teams are reading and cut the sources yourself; even large programs can benefit from gathering citations because it eliminates the need to “reinvent the wheel” each time a position is researched. While a small program might not be able to research an entire new disadvantage or case negative, it is almost always possible to supplement one’s existing strategies with new or better pieces of evidence that other teams have discovered. In this way, small squads are able to model the best practices of their larger peers and thereby reduce the impact of large schools’ coaching and research advantages.

Finally, make use of the many online forums for the discussion of debate and the policy resolution. Cross-X.com, for example, allows debaters from across the country to discuss everything from theoretical issues to affirmative cases and makes it easy to share citations or advice with one’s colleagues. If you’re looking for help answering a new critique, forums like Cross-X.com allow you to consult the community for assistance. While this form of interaction can never be effectively substituted for real world coaching, it can be put to great use by debaters from small programs who just need a helping hand.

Conclusion

It’s not easy to compete at the highest levels of high school policy debate. The demands on one’s time can be oppressive even for those with all of the institutional advantages that top programs provide. For those that compete for small programs or those that are looking to break into the circuit, it can seem impossible to compete with the established powerhouses. The structural advantages held by students from large programs do indeed create a playing field well short of level, but every year a handful of debaters demonstrate that a tiresome work ethic and a passion for the activity can overcome these substantial barriers. The advice discussed in this article is by no means a guaranteed blueprint for success, but it does outline some of the ways that smaller programs can compete at the highest levels. When you do finally make it to the top, the experience is all the more rewarding.

This article was inspired by Dr. David M. Cheshier’s “How Very Small Debate Programs Can Achieve National Success” (Rostrum, December 2002). His article provides additional advice and is highly recommended for those whose interest I have piqued.

Posted in Columns, Thursday Thing To Read |