2024 Debate Summer Camp Timetable
Grade | Class Date | Class Time | Delivery Method |
G4-7 | 12.27-30 & 1.2-5 | 9:30AM-12:30PM | Online |
G4-7 | 12.27-30 & 1.2-5 | 1:00PM-4:00PM | In-Person |
G8-12 | 12.27-30 & 1.2-5 | 1:00PM-4:00PM | Online |
G8-12 | 12.27-30 & 1.2-5 | 9:30AM-12:30PM | In-Person |
Course Overview
This comprehensive debate course series is designed to guide students from foundational skills through to advanced competitive debating. The curriculum is structured into three distinct levels, each tailored to build upon the previous stage, ensuring a gradual and thorough development of debate skills.
Foundations Course: This entry-level course provides a solid base in debate fundamentals. Students will learn essential debate formats, speech and argument structure, rebuttal techniques, public speaking skills, basic note-taking, and foundational argument generation. This course ensures that students develop a strong understanding of the basics, preparing them for more advanced concepts.
Intermediate Course: Building on the foundational skills, this course focuses on refining debate techniques and introducing more complex strategies. Students will engage in strategic argument selection, advanced analysis and rebuttal, improving argument quality, and applying frameworks. This course also emphasizes the importance of presentation style and strategic use of personas, helping students enhance their debate performance and prepare for higher-level competitions.
Advanced Course: Designed for competitive debaters aiming for top-level success, this course prepares students for major Canadian, American, and international tournaments. It includes intensive training tailored to specific tournaments, such as the popular Public Forum format. Students will receive personalized guidance from top coaches, focusing on high-level skills like principled argumentation, meta-debating, and effective use of examples. Entry requires a coach recommendation and a try-out session, ensuring that students are well-prepared for competitive success.
Why Choose This Course?
Championship-Level Coaching: The course is led by VDA’s champion coaches, each with over 6 years of teaching experience and more than 8 years of competitive debate experience. Their expertise ensures top-notch instruction and effective skill development.
Targeted Training: Each class includes focused debate training sessions where coaches provide personalized one-on-one feedback based on individual student performance. This tailored approach helps address specific strengths and weaknesses.
Skill-Centric Training: VDA’s curriculum emphasizes skill development rather than just debate formats. This approach equips students with the ability to compete in various debate formats and adapt to different competitive environments.
High-Level Debate Experience: Students have the opportunity to participate in international and high-level debate tournaments, honing their skills on a global stage. This exposure prepares them for top-tier competitions and real-world applications.
Comprehensive Skill Enhancement: Through in-depth training, students will improve their public speaking, argumentation, quick thinking, critical analysis, and strategic planning abilities. These skills have a significant positive impact on their academic and professional futures.
Competitive Advantage: The skills and experience gained from this course will set students apart in future debate competitions and other fields. Additionally, these competencies will enhance their university applications, providing them with a competitive edge.
Choosing this course ensures a robust and progressive learning experience, preparing students to excel in debate and beyond.
This course is designed to give students a very solid and strong start to debate.
Without going through the Foundation course, students easily get lost, which hinders their improvement and affects their interest in debate. We believe that no one can succeed at a high level without learning the basic, fundamental skills.
This is why we ask all our students to complete a term of Foundations before moving into the Intermediate class.
Target Debate Skills
- Basic debate format rules
- Speech and argument structure
- Rebuttal techniques
- Public speaking skill
- Basic note-taking
- Generating arguments
- Explaining impacts
- Beginner topic analysis
- Modeling a debate
- Weighing arguments
Knowledge Sessions
- Basic criminal justice
- Basic international relations
- Role of education
- Human rights and animal rights
- Basic philosophy
This course is designed to develop intermediate debate skills through use of challenging debate topics in domestic formats of debate (Canadian National Debate Format or British Parliamentary).
In class, students focus on specific debate skills to help them progress more quickly to the next level while expanding their knowledge.
Target Debate Skills
- Strategic argument choice
- Using multiple lines of analysis and rebuttal
- Drills on improving quality of argumentation
- Use of framing and weighing devices
- Intermediate-level burden analysis
- Drills on earlier skills (intros, presentation, note-taking)
Knowledge Sessions
- Economics
- Gender and society
- Journalism
- International relations
- Human rights and animal rights
This course is a special class offered to those students who are higher-level intermediate: not quite ready for the Advanced class, but higher level than most of their peers in Intermediate.
In this course, coaches will focus on targeting student areas of weakness and cementing high-level skills to prepare students to move up into the Advanced program.
This course is for strong debaters who are passionate about debate and are considering pursuing debate competitively. The lessons of this course are chosen by the coach to target specific areas of student weakness and will be decided based on the needs and goals of the debaters.
Lessons will be aimed at specifically improving student style and content while introducing higher-level strategic tools in debate.
Target Debate Skills
- Principled argumentation
- Meta-debating
- Use of presentation style for framing and weighing issues
- Pushing burdens
- Frameworks
- Use of personas
- Use of style for strategy
- Effective use of examples
Knowledge Sessions
- At the discretion of the coach
- Will be on more challenging and nuanced debate topic areas
This course is for the academy’s most competitive debaters who will compete on behalf of the academy at major Canadian and American, as well as world tournaments. All sessions are at the discretion of the top coaches of the academy, with a large portion of classes focused on training for specific tournaments, including tournaments that use the most popular American format of debate – Public Forum.
Prerequisites for entry into this class include both a coach recommendation as well as a try-out session. Students at this level frequently win top awards and have excellent skills that are easily transferable to other areas of their lives.