Mentor Unit Packages · Source pages 5–9
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First-timer cold start + debate move by move
If this is your first time teaching a debate-driven class, read this page and the next one (The Forge Debate, Move by Move) before anything else. You do not need debate experience to run the Forge. You need to guard a process. This page gives you the whole machine in plain words; the next gives you the one procedure everything rests on. Gentleness will not break it. The structure carries you.
The year is eight units, one per book. Each unit is three weeks, always in the same order:
In the Arms Room, students arrive having read part of the book, mine quotes, build arguments, and get assigned a role and a side. In the Forge, they hold a 35-minute structured debate by fixed rules. In the Tavern, there's no debate. They reflect, you teach one skill, and they write a short piece about who they're becoming. Then the next book begins.
Before all of it, Week 1 is the Trial Forge, a practice run where you demonstrate a debate and students try a rough one, so everyone sees the shape before it counts.
Three jobs keep this running. You may hold more than one (most weeks, two adults split three jobs; see Section 2):
Nobody is graded. You are not scoring arguments. You are running a room where students cannot hide, and stepping back a little more each unit until (by Unit 8) they run it without you. That deliberate stepping-back is the fade (Section 3).
Your first time in front of the room is the Trial Forge (Week 1). You are not expected to be a polished debate coach that day. Your only jobs:
If you can run the move-by-move sequence on the next page and say each step's name out loud, you can run the Trial Forge. Everything after Week 1 is the same shape, repeated, with you doing a little less each time.
This is the one procedure the whole year rests on. Learn it once. It is identical to the student Role Cards and the student handbook's “Oxford Debate, Step by Step”: so you, the students, and the cards all describe the same thing. Mentor cues are in italics.
| Seat | How many | Their job |
|---|---|---|
| Moderator | 1 | Runs the debate, calls votes, keeps time, decides who speaks. Does not argue. (Week 1: you model this. Unit 2 on: a student does it, you sit beside with a whisper-card.) |
| Affirmative | 2, Aff1, Aff2 | Argues for the claim. |
| Negative | 2, Neg1, Neg2 | Argues against the claim. |
| Researcher | 1 | Evidence packet open, passes fact-check notes. Silent in the flow. |
| Jury | everyone else | Votes before and after; one question per side. Decides the shift. |
Each debater speaks exactly twice: Aff1/Neg1 = opening + closing; Aff2/Neg2 = opening + rebuttal. Build → break → land.
Where first-timers stumble, and your fix:
| Stumble | Your one move |
|---|---|
| Debate runs long | Stand up silently. No words. The standing is the signal. Train this at the Trial Forge. |
| Openings have no text evidence | At the Arms Room, require 3 quotes before assigning Debater. A quote-less opening is a reading-compliance signal, not a debate problem. |
| Jury sits silent | Moderator calls a juror by name: “[Name], what do you want to know?” |
| Room gets personal | Re-read the exact question aloud. If it continues, 2-minute break. Do not mediate the content. |
| Below the attendance floor BELOW FULL ROSTER · SEE SEAT COLLAPSE | Collapse seats; if 2+ debaters are absent, run the Socratic fallback (Protocols / student handbook Insert Card). The debate never cancels. |