This is a recording of my lecture on teaching debate and argument. I was asked to give it at the start of the 2016 Budapest Open, and was happy to do so. Looking back on it now, I probably should have presented something a bit more animated. I was getting pretty sick at the time…

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Re-read this essay of mine recently after someone remarked how good it was. I wasn’t sure, but after re-reading it I think they are right – it might need a bit more attention than it gets in its original published form. It’s funny how an old piece can come back to life for you after…

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“Competitors and Adjudicators are encouraged to look up information before, during, and after the debate via the free WiFi and the academic databases provided by our sponsor, ProQuest.” “In lieu of the social we will have a round table featuring editors from the Economist, The BBC, Reuters, and The New York Times. There will be…

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“How do you get students interested in policy debate?”     I run into an alum of my debate program on the street outside the campus, around 11 o’clock at night. The timing couldn’t be worse (or perfect) —  I’ve just finished teaching my three hour class on debate where the oldest and most technical American…

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Screening the 2005 documentary Resolved today in preparation for showing it, as I always do, in my debate course. It’s a great text for discussing the nature of policy debate and how it functions within an educational institution and what it does or fails to do for/to students. In thinking about debate as shattering and re-constituting…

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I am very surprised that I am able to teach a debate class this semester. Where I work, a class won’t make unless you have over 10 people enrolled in it. It seems like a reasonable rule, but my university also has a bloated core of courses without much substitution allowed (9 hours of philosophy…

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A recent trip to BookCulture, and amazing bookstore I love, reminded me how terrifying a bookstore can be. And insightful. And nostalgic. And cozy. And again raised the question that haunts me these days: Why do we only think to assign books about form rather than explore the form we purport to teach through other…

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One of the strangest things about competitive debate is the inordinate pressure on the judge to get the decision “right.” Judges are struck, dismissed, sent to “bad rooms,” preferred low, or made fun of behind their back for their inability to judge the debate “the right way.” Such a judgement of judges is only possible…

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Last week, debaters from St. John’s University (where I teach and learn) and Adelphi University (in Long Island), had a public debate about Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. As someone who started both debate programs (with help at both places) it was a surreal and happy moment for me, watching this debate in…

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Today the University Press of Colorado is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary with 50% off books. (code: 50for50).  I was led there by a composition scholar and found a number of books on composition – teaching writing – that were very complex, theoretical, very rich explorations of theory and practice.  This was exciting and I spent…

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