These answer the questions that come up each semester about how debates are graded:
- Since I cannot verify how much study and preparation students do for the debate, the entire grade will depend on performance in the debate itself.
- The debate grades count the same as an essay in in terms of the cumulative grade at the end of the semester.
- Students will receive grades on the day of the debate.
- Students receive individual grades. If a team member refuses to prepare,this may be frustrating, but should not ruin one's grade. Where necessary, the difficulty of working with an inconvenient partner may be taken into account in the grading.
- One may get a good or bad grade whether one's team wins or loses.
- Each student is graded individually but according to how he or she does in advancing a team effort. Accordingly, students who make outstanding contribution to a team's poor showing may get A's, but not by abandoning the team.
- Grades will be awarded according to how logically and thoroughly each debater supports the team position. While I reserve the right to award a higher grade because a student delivers a speech very well, I will not penalize a student whose delivery falters unless that changes the logical content of the delivery. Once in a while a student freezes in front of the class, unable to speak. That student may wait even several minutes for his or her panic to pas, then proceed. As long as the speaker is eventually able to deliver the argument logically and thoroughly, the grade will not suffer.
- Hopefully this is obvious, but I will not grade anyone down on his or her accent.
- I will not grade anyone down for grammatical or usage errors unless they are sufficiently serious that the argument itself suffers.
- I make no guarantee that the use of any sort of visual aid will improve anyone's grade. In fact, my experience is that they usually do not (although I do recall several exceptions). High grades go to clear, profound argument that's relevant to the point at hand. Visual aids only improve one's case if they advance that.
- I have never had to drop any grade because a debater has been overly aggressive or disrespectful to a colleague, though I suppose this could happen. The arguments that do appear that are sort of on the borderline of this usually run like "Oh, you only believe that because you're rich (or poor or American or Republican or female or Catholic). This kind of argument tends to lower one's grade simply because it is irrelevant to the argument at hand. For instance, even if one can demonstrate that one's instructor is an arrogant, self-important pedant does not mean that said professor is incorrect about the comma splice on one's paper.
Feel free to ask about anything I've left out.
3 comments:
I would like to rant about a subject that we have not discussed in class, but concerns me immensely.
It has been in the news lately that Al Gore recently was a co-winner of the Nobel peace prize for his work in the subject of global warming. Gore, and most of our media, reports that global warming is accelerating and that if we do not do something quickly, the process will be irreversible. They would have us believe that this will lead to rising sea levels, the extinction of certain species, and eventually the destruction of the earths atmosphere, and maybe us.Is this scarry or what? Or, is this exactly what they are trying to do, scare us.
As my trust for the media has waned in the last few months, I have begun to research this global warming subject myself.I ran across an article on digitaljournal.com, written by Michael Wagner.He reports that much of the medias information regarding global warming, is supplied to them by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.This is a 3,000 member panel appointed by the United Nations, consisting of mostly politicians, not scientists.Many of the scientists on the panel dispute the global warming findings, but are having their opinion deleted from the panels reports.
The truth, according to Wagner, is that most scietist in the world disagree with the idea of global warming. He reports that a petition has already been signed by 17,000 scientist that states they do not agree with the conclusion of global warming.
Hearing these statistics makes me leary of our medias reporting of the global warming facts.Does anyone remember the medias reporting of the "fact" that Iraq had WMD's. Was not that meant to scare the American public, as global warming is doing.And was not the truth regarding WMD's shown to be "they never existed".I know the two issues do not seem to be related, except that most Americans receive their info regarding these two issues almost exclusively from the media. It sure makes me wonder.
History has shown that the best way for a government to subvert their peoples rights or to accomplish an unpopular political goal is by scarring them into believing that it is being done to protect them. Personally, I do not put it passed our government to pull a dirty trick like this against the American public.
It is intellectually suspect to state that Global Warming is not happening, the trends are easy to identify and document. I think the issues lies with if WE, as humans, are the main cause of the warming trend. Sadly, you would be hard pressed to find a study that is not politically backed. They have to get money from somewhere, right? The giving of this award to Gore, I think, is more about his crusade to bring attention to these changes, than any actual scientific work he has done to propogate understanding in this matter.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article516033.ece
Is just one of the articles that proclaim to have final "proof" we are the cause of this warming trend, but sadly, you can find another 30 against the linked article. The comparison to the Media reporting that Iraq had WMD's is a partial strawman, since the "Media" consisted almost entirely of Fox News, aptly nicknamed Faux News since they have a very heavy slant towards the republican party who was in power and trying to convince us we must attack Iraq before we all perish. The current administration relies entirely on FUD. If you aren't familiar with the acronym, I'm sure Prof. Crandall will be more than happy to explain it in depth. For the uninitiated or those people who don't attend class, it stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt". It is cast on everything you and I do as a way to keep the populace in line.
I have no beef with Muslims. Haha, see what I did there, Beef, Halal..funny stuff that is. I have always questioned the shoveling of news you receive when you get home from work at 5 and switch your TV on. As long as we question, investigate and educate ourselves, we can wade through the FUD and get to the facts.
First of all, explain to all of us what is meant by "intellectually suspect", and then tell us who that is directed at. Second of all, I supplied sources defending my arguement and all you supply is " the trends are easy to find".However, I do believe Global Warming does exist,I don't know why, and I do believe it is not to the extent that the media reports. Also,studies are not always politically backed. They are often backed by Universities, Individual Companies, or organizations with no political sponsorship. Granted, if they are politically backed, there would seem to be an agenda.
Post a Comment