Debate report 1

Friday december 11th, a shakesperean dibate was held at Rockland District High School. Wichin the following hour, the judges ( Seth, Colton, and Logan) would come to a decision on whether a modern or shakesperean tradgety is better. Teams to this debate are Dawson Justin and Ben for modern tragety, while the Shakespearean tragety is being fought by the Stephanie twins, Boucher and MacDonald, and Rebecca Ritchie. the rules to this debate was that every time one goes to make an argument, they would have to say " argument engage" and "disengage" when finished, the same must be done for rebuttles; after the rules were layed down, the debate was ready to begin. As the debate opens, Shtephanie Boucher starts with a very informed opening argument, one can tell that a certain team has done thier research. As the debate continues, the room begins to heat up with all the tension in the room, and with all this heat, as Justin Sweeny standy to make a rebuttle, he is overtaiken by the heat and must back down. Points are awarded to Dawson Lybert for his Shakesperean clothing, this small dressup might what decides teh winners if both teams continue with strong arguments as we started with.

After another argument made by Stephanie B, Ben stands up and calls a fallacy on her... Appeal to boredom? Ouch! Finishing her argument, Stephanie runns out of time and must be cut off. The modern tradgedy team starts to talk on and on, the counter team stands up, and calls them on speaking in circles, no points are being made, adn she seems to put her foot down. A judge does teh same, as at 1:56 Colton turns to dawson and sais " Common, what does this have to do with anything at all?" Dawson is forced to sit down and it is once again the other teams turn to rebuttle. This debate was almost over, when the Shakespearean side pulls out pictures of the opposing team drunk and passed out, pointing that they are just as much drunks as in thier tradgedies period meaning that they should be agreeing that shakespearean is better. Poisoning the well could ahve been called as a device used, but neither of the three men pointed it out, losing them a point to thier team. This was not the only dirty remark used by either teams, the modern team started to use sexist jokes about women in the kitchen... this did not get taken very well by the opposing team or any of the female reporters in the audience

Many points were lost due to fallacies adn rhetorical devices not being called, when in the end, Ben made a final statement " please let us end our misory". Having lost all of thier arguments to the strong points of teh Shakesperean side, the boys are ready for this debate to end. As the Judges tally up the points, it is quite clear to most wich team has won the judges over. At 2:30, a Shakesperean tradgedy was declared the better of the two.