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Kritiks: Impact Calculus Tournament
Learning Objectives
Apply impact calculus skills to structural impacts.
Analyze how impacts interact with each other to make “turn” arguments.
Time Needed
~25-35 min. (depends on squad size)
Resources & Materials
Paper (3 sheets per student)
Pens (1-2 colors per student)
Teacher Preparation
Create a list of structural/kritikal impacts for students to debate.
Sample impacts/kritiks: modern capitalism/neoliberalism; pre-emptively and dramatically reacting to potential/perceived threats (securitization); centering human life as most important (anthropocentrism); antiblackness/white supremacy; misogyny/patriarchy; defining certain ways that human bodies should be/can be natural, wrong, or needing to be altered (biopower).
Lesson Outline
- Mini-lecture – covering the following:
- Impacts to kritiks tend to be structural, discussing ongoing effects rather than specific, isolated events.
- Structural explanations of specific events would argue that the events are caused by decisions made based on flawed and harmful assumptions.
- Example (Security/Securitization K): A nuclear way impact could be explained as the result of assuming another country is a threat and interpreting all their actions through that lens, rather than a logical and calculated response to an act of foreign aggression.
- Kritiks may turn their opponent’s offense by explaining how the affirmative’s flawed reasoning/assumptions ultimately have consequences and/or make it impossible to solve aff harms.
- Example (Security/Securitization K): By seeing other nations as threats by default, decisionmakers will ultimately act aggressively and start a nuclear war, rather than preventing one (even if the specific scenario the affirmative discusses would be averted).
- Example (Capitalism K): As long as maximizing profits is prioritized over all else, powerful actors will never make the less financially beneficial decisions necessary to meaningfully address climate change.
- Impact Calc Tournament (Activity)
- Randomly assign an impact to each student.
- Create a bracket organizing students in head-to-head matches.
- Tell students they will have to explain why/how their impact is more important than their opponent’s.
- Longer format: 2 min. speeches with 1 min. rebuttals.
- Shorter format: 1 min. speeches.
- Have students give their speeches and vote after each pair finishes. Winning students should advance within the bracket until only one student is left!
Points of Improvement
Students do not discuss impact interactions.
Students struggle to see the weight of impacts without focusing on a specific event.
Signs of Mastery
Students can make “turn” arguments.
Students can give structural explanations of concrete impacts/events.
Instructor Notes
If students seem confused during the mini-lecture, consider giving half of the squad more concrete impacts and pairing them with structural impacts.
If time, consider having students who do not advance in the main bracket debate each other to compete for third place.