The Atlanta Urban Debate League is committed to providing excellent debate education programs, services, and opportunities to diverse students, educators, and members of the community!
Starting Your Team
Building Your Team - Recruitment & Retention
Getting new members
Appealing to parents can be a good way to get kids in the door to try debate. Some selling points include:
Debate teaches skills such as reading comprehension, critical thinking, and assigned advocacy which can be helpful for students academically, on standardized tests, and in life.
Research and flowing skills translate well to college.
Students develop the skills to be informed citizens.
Debate requires public speaking, listening, and note-taking to be successful.
It’s a great activity to help shy students become more confident.
It can help louder or more disruptive students develop better discipline.
AUDL debate is much more financially accessible than activities with high equipment or travel costs.
Appealing to students:
Students may join a club because they like the teacher or because their friends are involved; use this!
If your school/squad has the budget for swag, encourage the team to wear it and show it off!
Even without a budget, there are medals from tournaments and t-shirts from summer camps.
The debate season spans both semesters; appeal to students who may do sports or other seasonal activities to do debate during the off-season.
Highlight that there can be guaranteed “playing time” with debate.
Keeping kids involved
Students may not stick with debate if they feel intimidated by the rigor, discouraged by not winning all their rounds at a tournament, or think other activities are more useful or important. Some tips to encourage students to continue are:
Establish squad camaraderie and structure.
Having official positions, potentially even beyond just “captain”, can make students eager and proud to have a role within the squad.
These don’t have to be typical roles like president/VP/secretary; any dedicated job that a student could do to help the team as a whole could be made into a position (and look good on a resume).
Ex. Scribe/Secretary: takes notes at practice to share with people who couldn’t attend.
Ex. Representative: asks questions on behalf of the group/shier teammates.
Emphasize that students get the benefits of debate even if they don’t always win, and there’s no shame in losing.
All of the skills gained through debate are still there.
Learning about the resolution/topic means students will likely be more knowledgeable about the subject area than their friends and even some adults.
Competing against someone who’s really good at debate means they got to see things they can emulate, and the feedback will be invaluable to help them grow as debaters.
Debate skills are cumulative—though it may seem hard at the beginning, the structure of debate and argumentation don’t change. Things will only get easier with practice.
Long-term benefits of debate (great for high schoolers!):
o Debate is very appealing to college admissions officers, even if a student doesn’t have a wall of trophies.
Debate skills will prepare them for standardized tests, such as essay writing sections and interpretation of documents.
Great college preparation—students will be better prepared for online research, taking notes during a fast-paced lecture, and preemptively addressing arguments in essays.
Discuss benefits associated with higher level debate (e.g., GFCA, college).
Travel across the country and see colleges.
Excused absences to compete at tournaments.