Policy

What is Policy Debate?

Policy Debate is a two person activity which typically focuses on questions of governmental action. Policy debaters can think of themselves as legislators actually debating critical national, or international, issues. Policy topics tend to be rather broad and policy debaters keep the same topic all year. In the past few years, policy debates have become "more critical," which means that policy debaters are debating underlying assumptions made by peoples and governments in addition to debating what sort of actions the government might take. In the Beginning Policy class students not only learn how to do policy debate, but also learn about the topic, and about the many ideas connected to the topic. In the Advanced Policy class students continue to develop their skills to speak, write, listen and think critically. Please enjoy the cliff dwelling in Arizona between these previous plans, at least until this page is changed.