Survey of English Literature I - DEBATE ASSIGNMENTS James Madison University

DEBATE ON BEOWULF AND LANCELOT

Instructions: This counts as THREE assignments, one for the in-class preparation, one for you own preparations (hardcopy of your contribution to be submitted), and one for debate participation. These assignments will be evaluated only as acceptable or unacceptable efforts, but your preparation must be substantial. Individual preparations must be typed and will be collected!
BACKGROUND: While Beowulf and Lancelot are very different people, they are both complex individuals in complex situations. Both characters desire to do great good, both are influenced by their backgrounds, both accomplish great feats, both are praised, and both are part of events that ultimately cause suffering.
ISSUE: Which character is more heroic?
A COUPLE POSSIBLE CONSIDERATIONS (not at all exhaustive!): What conception of heroism should apply? What is more important in determining whether or not a person is heroic – his actions, his motivations, his intentions, his own assessment of his behavior, his heroic development over time, something else? Does the author’s/poet’s or narrator’s opinion matter in any way or do we need to separate their opinions from the real answer to this question? What do people say about these characters when they die? If you are "pro" one character, what can you say on the "con" side for the other character?
PREPARATION (To be turned in separately by each student):

Debate team members should determine what they think are the important factors in this debate and prepare arguments for their side (and/or against the other side :) ). Individual written preparations should address relevant issues and include a set of well-chosen quotes from BOTH relevant literary works (evidence for your side and against the other side). Team members should each have a written copy of their preparations to submit for credit. The teams could decide on a division of labor in terms of what issues are considered, but everyone should do this type of preparation for whatever issues he/she takes on.

As the name implies, judges should come prepared to run the debate, including having a policy on how they will determine in advance which of their own questions to use as part of the debate. (I'll provide just a few constraints and offer a possible set of guidelines for the judges' consideration in Friday's class.) Judges should also each individually prepare a written draft of their own vision of the general criteria they expect to use to evaluate the persuasiveness of the debaters. This written discussion should include at least a couple specific details about both texts. The individual guidelines are not rigidly binding; they're just intended to make sure each judge has seriously prepared to vote based on the strength of the debating teams' arguments rather than based on their own beliefs about the correct answer. The criteria can and should be discussed by the judges before they each write up their own thoughts. Finally, each judge should come up with at least one possible question for the debaters that he or she thinks brings up an interesting and highly debatable issue that the teams may not think of themselves. This should be included as part of each judge's written preparation.

A very small period of time (no more than three minutes!) will probably be given at the beginning of class on 10/5 for last minute pre-debate organization.

ASSIGNING TEAMS: Team memberships will be assigned in class Friday, 10/2. The rest of the class period will be devoted to in-class group preparations, which will count as the first of the three debate assignments. If you miss that class, contact me ASAP for more information so that you can still get credit for two out of the three assignments.