Wisconsin Forensics Daily

How To Make The Most Of Your Summer Institute Experience

Attendance at a summer institute has become a critical component of a student’s success in contemporary interscholastic policy debate. While motivated individuals can still compete at a very high level without the benefit of a camp experience, those students who are able to take advantage of summer institute opportunities can substantially improve their argumentation skills, understanding of the topic, and enjoyment of the activity. Whether the camp runs for a week or for nearly two months, a student who immerses him- or herself into policy debate during the off-season and spends his or her time working with experienced teachers and committed peers will find themselves at a sizable advantage when they return to the rigors of competition in the Fall.

Given the investment in both time and money required by today’s institutes, it is imperative that students take their debate training seriously and make the most of their opportunity. Regardless of the institute one attends or the lab that one is assigned, it is those students who invest the most effort during their stay at camp that come away with the most rewarding experiences. The following discusses some of the most important ways that debaters can maximize the utility of their attendance at summer institutes. When September rolls around and your first big tournament of the year gets underway, you’ll be glad that you didn’t waste even a single opportunity to hone your skills and gain a leg up on your competition.

Develop a Strong Background Knowledge about the Topic

One of the most tangible benefits of attending a summer institute is the preparation one receives on the upcoming resolution. Unfortunately, too many debaters perceive the introductory topic lectures and lab group brainstorming sessions as an excuse to ignore the topic until they arrive at camp. Failure to engage in preliminary topic reading before you get to institute is sure to frustrate your lab leaders and waste valuable opportunities for higher-level discussions of next year’s resolution. Introductory lectures and presentations about key arguments should supplement and not substitute for your existing knowledge of the topic.

When conducting preliminary topic reading, focus more on obtaining background information and familiarizing yourself with the controversies in the literature than on producing evidence. While it never hurts to cut a few cards, it is much more important to gain a broad understanding of the topic area. As a result, debaters should not approach their reading as a search for usable evidence but rather as a mission to become as knowledgeable as possible about the issues at the core of the topic.

For the 2006-2007 National Service resolution, debaters will need to familiarize themselves with the Armed Forces and its recruitment strategies, the five non-military service programs listed (AmeriCorps, Citizen Corps, Senior Corps, Peace Corps, and Learn and Serve America), and the larger issues of national service and its place in American civil society.

One particularly strong place to start is E.J. Dionne et al.’s United We Serve: National Service and the Future of Citizenship, a collection of essays that present competing viewpoints on many of the issues debaters will confront about national service. Another solid background resource is Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, a book by Theda Skocpol that analyzes civic involvement by United States citizens over the course of many decades and presents ideas about how to reinvigorate participation. The Democratic Progressive Policy Institute is another outstanding resource for reading about the topic that includes Will Marshall and Marc Porter Magee’s The AmeriCorps Experiment and The Future of National Service, a book-length collection of essays published in 2005 that is offered for free online. In it, a variety of authors discuss national service programs and alternative approaches to strengthening them including faith-based initiatives, local involvement, mandatory service, and voluntary incentives to participation.

A visit to a local college library or a search of online resources like Google Print, Amazon, or (for those in Wisconsin) WISCAT will help uncover even more helpful resources. When locating background literature, books are significantly more helpful than most web or Lexis searches. Be sure to keep a list of promising citations found in footnotes and search results and track down the ones that appear most frequently.

Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses and Set Personal Goals

In addition to background reading, it is important for students to take time before they leave for camp to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and their goals for the summer. What are your most advanced skills? What parts of debate give you the most trouble? What arguments or skills do you want to improve on at institute? These questions will help guide a debater’s critical self-reflection and will help him or her make the most of their camp experience.

When evaluating strengths and weaknesses, a student should consider broad argument genres (e.g. critiques or counterplans), specific arguments (e.g. Foucault or consequentialism), specific speeches (e.g. 2AC or 1AR), in-round skills (e.g. extending evidence or argument selection in the 2NR), out-of-round skills (e.g. researching online or constructing negative strategies), and the intersections between them (e.g. how to answer a consultation CP in the 2AC or how to extend a Foucault critique in the 2NC). Reflect on wins, losses, and judge feedback from the previous season and solicit opinions from coaches and teammates. Also, take into consideration the circuit in which you debate and the types of arguments that you are likely to encounter there; if many schools from your area hack for the K but you’re more comfortable with politics disadvantages and case arguments, it might be a good idea to concentrate on improving your critique debating in order to negate your opponents’ strength. Likewise, if your judges tend to be more conservative and prefer straight-up case debates, it is probably a waste of time to learn the art of extending the process counterplan on the negative.

Once you’ve compiled a list of 3-5 strengths and weaknesses, set a similar number of goals that you intend to strive for during your stay at camp. While the most obvious goals will involve improving the weaknesses that one has identified, students should also consider establishing some tangible goals. For example, a debater could strive to cut at least twenty pieces of quality evidence or complete at least one rebuttal re-do each day. By setting goals ahead of time and discussing them with your coaches and lab leaders, you will have a constant reminder of the things that you would like to accomplish during your time at summer institute and an added incentive for meeting them.

Take Advantage of Your Instructors’ Expertise

Too many students spend their summers just chugging along, doing the minimum amount of research and practice drills without ever taking advantage of their lab leaders’ expertise. This is a grave mistake. One of the most beneficial aspe
cts of the summer institute experience is the opportunity it provides for debaters to work with talented instructors who can help them bring their games to the next level. To ensure that you’re getting the most attention possible from your lab leader, be diligent about signing up for rebuttal re-dos or volunteering for extra practice debates. If your lab group schedules supervised research time, ask your lab leader for help improving your research skills; if you are comfortable with Google searches but lack familiarity with the EBSCOhost databases, for example, don’t spend your time on Google (you can always go back to it later) but instead attempt to learn the new technology with your instructors’ help. If your lab schedules time for rebuttal re-dos, sign up to give one and solicit as much feedback as possible. When you return for another speech, try to incorporate your lab leader’s advice and encourage him or her to help you perfect your deficiencies.

Most importantly, remember that your summer institute instructors are there to serve you, not the other way around. While high school students might be in awe of lab leaders that have cleared at the NDT or coached TOC champions, most instructors are eminently approachable and happy to reward those students who show initiative with extra attention. After all, it is the institute’s students who pay the instructors’ salaries.

Show Diligence in Taking and Organizing Notes

The average institute will offer students access to a myriad of lectures, brainstorming and research sessions, drills, and practice debates. Unfortunately, much of the information generated by these activities is lost because debaters fail to properly organize and archive their notes and handouts. Instead of haphazardly jotting down lecture notes on the back of a file or stuffing research handouts into your junk drawer of a backpack, keep a binder or a folder on your laptop in which you can store and transport all of your institute materials.

What to keep? Everything. Take notes after every practice speech and practice debate, noting the X’s and O’s (when, where, what, who) as well as any feedback you receive from your instructors and your own thoughts about the session. For example, the following is a log of a hypothetical practice debate.

PRACTICE DEBATE – June 30th at 3:00PM in Butler Hall

Tom and I were aff

Jane and Mary were neg

Steve was judging

1AC: DADT through the Courts with Heterosexism and Readiness Advantages

1NC: T-Effects, O-Spec, Politics (Bush Bad – India Deal), DOD CP, CLS K, Case Defense

2NR: Politics and DOD CP

Tom and I won on a solvency deficit, an SOP DA to the CP, and defense against Politics

Steve said:

• we needed to read more offense against the K
• I spent too much time on T and O-Spec in the 2AC
• the 1AR should have extended dispo bad against the CP

My thoughts:

• I had trouble covering in the 2AC and need to improve time allocation
• my 2AR was okay but I’d like to give it again
• should schedule re-do with Steve

By keeping a log, a student will be able to look back at a written record of their time at camp so that he or she can remember the feedback they’ve received and communicate that to their coaches at home. The time it takes to record these details is well worth it.

In addition to practice speeches and debates, students should also keep notes about their research assignments and the articles and books they have read and cut. By organizing one’s searches and citations, a debater can avoid wasting time tracking down articles they’ve already read and can build a sizable reference of citations that can be used during the year when conducting original research. It is much easier to update a summer institute file when you have kept notes about its creation: what parts of the argument need more work? Were there promising citations that you weren’t able to track down before the deadline? Is there a different spin you could put on the argument to make it unique to your squad? Debaters should view their summer institute research as a rough draft that they will continue to refine during the course of the season and not as a finished product. By keeping notes about your research during the summer, you will be better able to take advantage of it later in the year.

Conclusion: Building a Foundation for Season-Long Success

Finally, don’t forget to have fun. Even the most diligent debaters will have more than enough time to socialize with their peers and develop friendships that will last long after the institute comes to an end. Take advantage of the recreational activities offered by your camp and make it a point to meet new people from outside your region. After all, traveling to debate tournaments during the season is much more fun if you can spend time with friends with whom you spent the summer. Such relationships can even offer competitive rewards, as students can share information about arguments and judges with friends from different circuits.

Summer debate institutes are a significant investment by students and their parents. Each year, debaters spend thousands of dollars to spend weeks of their summers with some of the best and brightest of their peers across the country. Regardless of which camp you attend, participation at a summer institute is an incredible privilege and one that should be treated with an appropriate respect. To make the most of your opportunity, create a game plan for maximizing your investment and stick with it from the time your last tournament finishes to your arrival at camp to your return home and your first rounds of the 2006-2007 season. For those who put in the effort, attendance at a summer debate institute will provide a solid foundation upon which to build a season filled with competitive success.

Bill Batterman is an Assistant Policy Debate Coach at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, WI and a contributor to Wisconsin Forensics Daily.

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