Saturday, June 30: I Will Survive!

On Saturday, students in the BC lab began the morning session with a discussion of 1AR pitfalls and ways to avoid them by effectively using cross-examination to set up the rebuttal. Then, students shifted to an critical examination of the final article, which laid out Henry Shue's argument for ensuring that basic subsistence rights be met across the world. After lunch, students reconvened to review the advanced mechanics of giving a 1AR that not only ensures the affirmative's survival for the 2AR but limits the opportunities the negative has to win in the 2NR. As the students fondly recall, great debaters "close doors." Following the seminar, students gave 1ARs against a thorough negative spread in front of the lab. Henry Curtis deserves special recognition for giving a great speech that showed much perseverance. After lab, several of the students met with their lab leaders to go over case revisions on the day before the start of practice rounds.