Mukati 1

Zain Mukati

Caitlin Pierson

ENC 1101

23 October 2017

The Debate Community Changes You

It takes a village to raise a child.1 This quote summarizes how most people come to be:

as a result of their own experiences, mixed in with the guidance of everyone around them. Every

community that I have been a part of has utilized writing and literate activities. But the

community which has most dramatically impacted my own writing and style would be my

Debate club from high school. This club included most teachers in my high school and my close

friends that Ive known since elementary school.

Unlike other clubs which were more moderate about our responsibilities, the debate

discourse had constant tests of fluency2 within it to ensure that its members are fulfilling their

roles and upholding the standards of the club. These tests make it difficult to be accepted within

the debate discourse because you must essentially acquire a second language3 in the form of

debate. My success with these tests of fluency allowed me to excel at the literary activities the

debate community engaged in. These literary activities included writing speeches, analyzing

sources, and finding weaknesses in each others speeches. Writing the speeches was the most

essential literate activity done by the debate team. These speechs allowed debate members to

establish their own credibility to opposing debaters and the judges. This allowed for every point

made after the speech to hold more weight when the round was being assessed afterwards, this

came into play quite a bit when both teams had strong points that contrasted with each other and

1
Unknown, Potentially African Origins
2
Page 7 of James Paul Gees writing
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Pg. 278 James Paul Gees Writing
 Mukati 2

neither team could gain an advantage over the other. Within these speeches we had to input

external sources so that our claims can have backing. These sources must fit within the criteria

for debate and thus must be reviewed for certain issues such as including charts, being a meta-

analysis of the subject area and being an illegitimate source of information such as a blog post or

message board. At any time, the opposing debaters can ask to see your sourcing and if this

sourcing is illegitimate, the round will most likely go to whoever has the more relevant and

legitimate sourcing. Of all literary activities included within the debate discourse, my favorite

was finding weaknesses in one anothers speeches. First this included editing and correcting

mistakes so that the speech can be respected by those who hear it, but once this part of the

process is completed, all the debate members have mock debates where everyone can either

debate against their friends, teachers, or debate captains. This also allowed for some members to

find flaws in the techniques of other members and allowed an overall fortification of the debate

teams ability to compete. This was essential to the debate team simply because if those within

the team can exploit the weaknesses found within a speech, so can any opponents the debaters

happen to face. When writing a speech, one would typically either understand how to go about it

or he would not. If he did not, then he has created an exigence4 in terms of his understanding and

needs to communicate this to a sponsor or peer. Constraints5 for this student could be that he did

not attend enough meetings, or he is afraid of asking for help from the many around him. The

best course of action this rhetor/author (student) could take would simply be to ask sponsors or

peers within the debate community(audience), to help him out and teach him what hes missing

(exigence). This situation occurs quite often in debate and our large community works hard to

resolve these issues.

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Page 485, Keith Grant-Davie
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Page 485, Keith Grant-Davie
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The debate community received a large amount of support from almost the entire school.

The sponsors who gave the support included teachers, students, and external volunteers all of

whom greatly increased our understanding of debate and how to succeed in its literary activities.

Most of these sponsors wanted see our team succeed because if the team succeeded, the school's

reputation got better and allowed for debate to receive more school funding. Even though these

sponsors elevated our understanding of the literary activities contained within debate, they also

gained advantage6 of teaching us by furthering the debate team's reputation. Even though most

of the school was sponsoring our debate team, I only utilized a small number of these sponsors to

enhance my literary activities because the other sponsors would be very popular among students

which made it difficult to see them. Typically, once I wrote the speech, I went to my English

teacher and had her correct my grammar and any mistakes I made and followed this up by then

giving it to my debate captain, so he could evaluate the strength and validity of my speech and

sources. These sponsors of debate essentially made my speech powerful so that when I went into

tournaments, I would not be handicapped by poor writing ability. As a result, when I went into

my rounds for debate I could compete very well with any opponent that I got put up against,

even when I lost it would not be decisive. But along with the assistance with literary activities in

the debate discourse, they also provided support when we were nervous before rounds, they

motivated our team at tournaments, they bought us pizza when we won trophies, and most of all

they cared about us more than they cared about debate (removed). Because of them going above

and beyond, we were more open to their criticisms for our literary activities, we had more faith

in their abilities to help us, and most of all we never felt intimidated to ask them for help with

anything in relation to debate. Without powerful sponsors, literacy would not be as available to

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Page 72, Writing about Writing
 Mukati 4

ordinary people7 The sponsors had good intentions and even though they wanted our debate team

to be considered among the best, our own individual successes meant more to them than our

debate team's reputation.

The debate discourse carried its own set of values and mannerisms which revolved

around being confident, respectful, and dominant. Thus, our language attempted to fulfill these

goals while simultaneously working alongside our debate skills to allow us success in

tournaments. We typically utilized language in debate to effectively communicate our arguments

to our opponents and judges so that there is no issue of clarity towards either of the parties. This

language had to also can make our argument appear more valid than our opponents. For

example, if the opponents claim cannot be refuted through your own, you must beat them with

your language by making your points clearer, by organizing your claims better, and through

selective word choice which makes the contentions you present look more valid than anything

your opponent presents. But with this debate language, we must use jargon that you wouldn't

find in day-to-day conversation for the many specific situations that come into play when two

parties are arguing. Some terms that were often used in rounds are the same terms you would

expect to see in the political world, such as cherry-picking (having only 1 situational example

used to support a point) and fallacy, (which is essentially an argument based on false evidence

or incorrect reasoning). We had to thoroughly learn the debate language because the ability to

express yourself and understand the uses of the debate jargon had to be present or there would be

no chance of winning. Even though our team was for debate, we had a large focus on literate

activates since you need a strong argument to win a case, thus we were taught how to write for

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Page 81, Deborah Brandt
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the sake of tournaments. We could not as have stated on page 9 of Gees writing, debate students

cannot fossilize at a stage of development significantly short of fluency8.

When I joined debate in the sophomore year of high school I was taught all the basic

concepts which I had gotten by without such as indentation, the difference between theyre and

there, and a multitude of others, these contributions to my literacy9 helped me greatly during

my time in both debate and school. Even though at this point in my life I don't consider myself to

be an outstanding writer, debate club gave me some confidence that I could at least get a decent

paper out if I work hard enough. This tutoring from my debate team not only improved my

writing skills, but it also changed my writing process. Before I went into debate, I simply wrote a

paper and submitted it. But because of debate my process changed significantly. Since I had to

keep a certain level of quality within my debate speeches, there was quite a bit of pressure to

have a good speech. Thus, I started to care about writing. Firstly, I began with researching the

topic and trying to get more information to gauge what information is present and what seems

useable while still being relevant to the primary objective. Then, I pick out ideas that I feel that

I could write about without difficulty and with a relatively large number of credible sources to

have strong backing. Afterwards, I used the process of brainstorming ideas so I can get all my

thoughts onto a piece of paper, so I don't forget, then I cancel out all ideas that don't have enough

evidence behind them or would be difficult to write about, I sometimes avoid this step because

the smaller points can all be put into one paragraph that can contain small arguments, all of

which it would be difficult for the opponent to refute. Then, I pick out ideas that I feel that I

could write about without difficulty and with a relatively large number of credible sources to

have strong backing. These ideas are then organized into an outline, this outline typically

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Page 9 of James Paul Gees writing
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Page 70 of Brandts writing
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arranged in a manner so that each claim can smoothly transition to the next once the actual paper

is written. For example, talking about how GMOs create antibiotic resistant bacteria, which

would have to lead into how this bacterium is affecting the world. Once this outline has been

done, I write my paper based on this outline and sit and correct the papers grammatical mistakes.

I normally write the paper within 2-4 sittings lasting anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, typically i do

this in the morning because my days are typically full of things to do as it gets later in the day, I

try my best to minimize noise and I normally have a bottle of water next to me that I drink from

when the writing becomes stressful. I typically utilize multiple websites along with my own

basic knowledge to correct grammar for online assignments. But these websites are unable to

correct logical errors that I may have made which is why it is essential that I go through the

paper myself, as well as utilize the function of the website. This leads into me giving my paper to

a trusted teacher, or friend who then reviews the structure and clarity of the papers message and

tells me if the paper becomes obscure or clouded at any point which then leads me into

correcting the paper one more time and submitting it. I find it is inefficient to give my paper to

multiple people because then the many conflicting writing styles conflict with each other when I

try to make edits. Thus, only the opinion of one trusted person along with my own composes the

entirety of the paper, the weakness in this method is if the person you give it to has poor

knowledge of the subject area, thus you must either give them some background information on

the topic, or find someone else who already understands the topic well. Overtime, I've realized

which people give good and objective criticism, and those are the people I utilize the most for

my revisions10. The whole of my writing skills at present time were influenced due to my

apprenticeship11 with debate. I use this long and redundant method of writing to compensate

10
Richard Straub, pg. 45
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James Paul Gee, pg. 275
 Mukati 7

for my poor writing skill, and it works most of the time. This process is still what I use today so I

can maximize the quality of my essays. This process can be improved in the way of using topics

that I fear, this would expand my manner of thought and allow me to more successfully right

papers because I will know more than just what I am comfortable with.

While debate did help quite a bit, there were a few negatives to the community. Firstly,

the literary activities included within debate were a little too situational. Meaning that a lot of the

speech writing and correcting only helped me learn in that one specific context, as a result my

skills acquired from literary activities were not near as broad as they could have been if I was a

part of a different discourse such as English literacy. The literacy sponsors did sometimes put too

much pressure on the members who participated in debate and this stress resembled what most

students feel when preparing for the SAT. As great as these sponsors were, they unintentionally

caused many students to just quit debate as soon as they got the chance. The language utilized in

debate was political but as good as this was in the right situations, it was completely obsolete in

my day to day writing when I had to analyze poetry for my English class or when I tried to

portray my understanding of WWII to my history teacher. The one thing I can say that had no

negatives was its impact on my writing process because it honestly allowed me to find a way to

think that made me much more effective when I wrote anything, and as a result, greatly increased

my confidence in my own writing. Debate showed me how I can write a paper and compensate

for all the errors through hard work, and for that I thank debate. While debate had harms. I

believe that the benefits of debate significantly outweigh the harms.(omitted)

In summation, the debate community and its literary activities have drastically impacted

the way I write and use language. The literate activities in debate gave me a push that I greatly

needed so that I could start taking writing seriously and thus allowed me to not give up on trying
 Mukati 8

to learn the skills that I will need in the future. Along with debate, my literary sponsors for

debate gave me the best possible environment to learn. Their kindness and hard work ethic

allowed for not only me to succeed in the community while surviving constant tests of fluency12,

but also allowed for many of those who are also a part of the team to succeed in their own

individual events. Debate also taught me political language and how I can be confident in my

writing and in rounds for the sake of my success in both. This political language still shows up in

my writing from time to time today. But most importantly, my writing process was drastically

impacted by the whole of the debate community and made me finally put in work for the

effectiveness of my writing. The debate team did have its negatives in the form of mass amounts

of stress which compounded with the stress from school along with some of the learning from

debate being quite situational and not applying in my day-to-day life. Even though debate did

have these negatives,(omitted) I found that it greatly increased my confidence in my own

writing due to its refining my process. This refining has helped me quite a bit, in not only debate

but also regular literate activities that I come across daily. Overall, the debate community and its

sponsors have greatly contributed to my current writing abilities and thus I have a great

appreciation of its community and its members.

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Deborah Brandt Sponsors of Literacy
 Mukati 9

Works Cited

1. Unknown, Potentially African Origins

2. Sponsors of Literacy, Deborah Brandt (Writing about Writing)

3. Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics, James Paul Gee (Writing about Writing)

4. Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents, Keith Grant-David (Writing about

Writing)

5. Responding-Really Responding to Other Students Writing, Richard Straub

(Writing about Writing)