DEBATE

Q1, The Final Choice priority: central debate

“He saves Earth, but doesn’t come home, and never even tries. Is that discipline, or the moment discipline stopped mattering?”

Hook (5 min). Write: if finishing a different good thing became the only way to help a friend, would finishing the original job still mean going home? Then open with Grace’s choice.
Position A. He was sent to collect data and bring it home that was the deal. Staying with Rocky was choosing attachment over the job he was trained for.
Position B. The mission was never “collect data,” it was “save Earth.” Real discipline is staying loyal to the goal even when the plan under it has to change.
Research: mid-execution scope changes in search-and-rescue/expeditions; rule vs. the reason for the rule.

Q2, The Body That Remembers

“Grace’s hands know how to test and measure before his mind catches up. Discipline, or something wearing its clothes?”

Hook (5 min). Name one thing you do correctly without thinking about how you learned it. Is doing it well proof of discipline, or proof discipline once happened and isn’t needed now?
Position A. It’s discipline trained so thoroughly it survives even losing his memory of why he has it.
Position B. By the book’s own definition, discipline requires knowing the easy option exists. Amnesiac Grace isn’t choosing anything: that’s conditioning, not discipline.
Research: habit formation/procedural memory; does discipline require present-tense awareness?

Q3, No One Is Watching priority: warmer, pairs with Q1

“For days Grace works alone with no deadline, no audience, no one who’d know if he stopped. What kept him going?”

Hook (5 min). If no one would ever find out whether you finished something hard, would you still finish it? Write, don’t share yet.
Position A. The truest test of discipline is exactly this: no supervisor, no grade. The habit was built with witnesses; it doesn’t need one to keep running.
Position B. Call it survival instinct or fear of a slow death alone in space. The alternative to working was dying: that’s necessity dressed up as virtue.
Research: solo endurance workers (sailors, polar researchers) on their own motivation; intrinsic vs. extrinsic discipline.

U1 · 1/2

Q1, The Right Call

“Jo made the wrong call refusing Laurie. She chose an abstract ideal over a person who truly loved her.”

Hook (5 min). Would you rather be loved by someone great who doesn’t fully understand you, or someone compatible who shares your values? Jo chose the second: did she have the right to choose it for everyone?
Position A. Laurie would have supported her writing; the family stayed poor because she closed a visible path out of it. When your choice costs your family security, that’s not perseverance, it’s selfishness.
Position B. Bhaer shares her ideals; marrying someone who doesn’t understand your calling is self-erasure, not perseverance. Perseverance means not letting others define your success.
Research: 19th-c. marriage economics; Alcott’s own romantic history; profession vs. domesticity in women’s fiction.

Q2, The Cost priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“Jo left for New York while Beth was declining, came home, and was at her bedside when she died, but seeing Beth die made Jo renounce ambition entirely. Was it worth it?”

Hook (10 min). Name something you’re pursuing that you’d set aside if a family member needed you. Would you?
Position A. At Beth’s bedside, while Beth was still alive, Jo “renounced her old ambition” (Ch. XL). Perseverance that collapses the moment it’s tested isn’t perseverance: it’s vanity dressed as ambition.
Position B. Jo “never left her for an hour” (Ch. XL); after Beth’s death she was “taught by love and sorrow” and wrote again (Ch. XLII). Perseverance doesn’t mean never pausing: it’s coming back to the work after the grief.
Research: 19th-c. TB mortality/family care; ethics of career sacrifice during illness; Alcott’s sister Lizzie’s death.

Q3, The Privilege Question

“Jo’s perseverance was a luxury. She could refuse Laurie because she had a family to catch her.”

Hook (5 min). Each side names one person (real or fictional) who proves the other side wrong.
Position A. Strip Jo of the March family and she’s a governess in Connecticut, not an author. The book rewards the sister with the most privilege.
Position B. Family isn’t a net, it’s the Forge itself: Jo’s perseverance includes theirs. The strongest perseverance is communal, not solitary.
Research: economic history of 1860s women writers; the “bootstrap myth” in American literature.

U2 · 1/2

Q1, The Boat priority: warmer, run early

“A group that can replace you any Tuesday is not a family. It’s abandonment with matching oars.”

Hook (5 min). Describe a time you were left out of a group you needed. Joe’s crew said “got your back” (Ch. 13); Ulbrickson said “every man for himself.” Which was real?
Position A. Joe lived in the YMCA basement while most of the crew lived together (Ch. 14). “Changed Rantz and Hatch and it helped a lot” (Ch. 13): helped the boat, not Hatch. The mechanism was identical to Joe’s exile from the cabin: perform or be discarded.
Position B. Roger shouted “you finally found the right boat!”; Shorty said “I’ve got your back” (Ch. 13). Joe’s biological family told him to fend for himself at ten. The crew fed him trust before they fed him a meal.
Research: found-family psychology; 1930s informal adoption; sports teams vs. biological families.

Q2, The Swing priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“‘Swing’ demands rowers surrender the self until the boat becomes ‘a part of each of them.’ That is erasure with a stopwatch.”

Hook (10 min). Have you been in a group where your own thoughts disappeared into its rhythm? Freeing, or frightening?
Position A. Great crews “have no stars…not the individual, not the self” (Ch. 10); Joe rowed “as if he were an extension” of the men beside him (Ch. 13). An extension is not a peer.
Position B. The same passage says crews are “carefully balanced blends” of personalities (Ch. 10): you combine rowers, not clone them. Joe “felt at home” and “just trusted them” (Ch. 13). Trust is not erasure.
Research: flow-state psychology (Csikszentmihalyi); individualism vs. collectivism in American sports; ego dissolution in Buddhism.

Q3, The Cut

“Hatch and the boys cut from varsity paid the cost of ‘interdependence.’ It’s organized abandonment with a gold medal at the end.”

Hook (5 min). Name a group where someone else was excluded so you could succeed: did you earn your spot, or did they lose theirs?
Position A. Every seat in the Husky Clipper required another boy to sit on shore. The book celebrates the nine who won and barely names the dozens who lost their place.
Position B. The boat “began to fly” after the change (Ch. 13). Rowing has nine seats: there’s no alternative. Hatch wasn’t betrayed, he was outperformed.
Research: meritocracy vs. inclusion in youth sports; does every team success require individual failure?

U3 · 1/2

Q1, The Collins Question

“Elizabeth was a fool to refuse Collins. Her ‘integrity’ was stubbornness with a daughter’s privilege.”

Hook (10 min). Read Collins’s proposal aloud (Ch. 19). Each student writes accept/refuse and why: no discussion. Then: did Elizabeth have the right to refuse for all five sisters?
Position A. Collins offers Longbourn itself. Her “stand” is only possible because she expects her father to protect her: resilience with a safety net isn’t resilience, it’s risk-taking.
Position B. Marrying someone who disgusts you is self-destruction, not resilience. She finds Hunsford “melancholy” and notes Charlotte’s contentment “had not yet lost their charms” (Ch. 38) that yet is the whole argument.
Research: entailment law in Regency England; marriage as economic survival in Austen; Charlotte as the alternate path.

Q2, The Wickham Question

“Elizabeth misjudged Darcy and trusted Wickham, nearly destroying her family. Was her resilience actually blindness?”

Hook (5 min). Name a time you trusted the wrong person. When judgment fails, is it because you trust too much, or too little?
Position A. Her “resilience” against Darcy was performed ignorance: she refused to reconsider because she enjoyed being right.
Position B. What matters is she changed her mind on new evidence: “blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd” (Ch. 36). Admitting that is harder than the original stand.
Research: confirmation bias / first-impression research; ethics of changing your mind; Austen’s own revisions to the novel.

Q3, The Class Question priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“If Elizabeth had been Charlotte Lucas (no looks, no wit, no father’s protection) would she have had the same resilience?”

Hook (5 min). Find one person, real or fictional, who proves resilience is possible without Elizabeth’s advantages.
Position A. Elizabeth can afford to refuse Collins because she believes something better will come. Without her father, her wit, her looks: would she have been resilient, or just desperate?
Position B. Her wit and standards are the evidence of resilience, not the cause. Charlotte had the same inputs and chose differently: that’s character, not circumstance.
Research: class/gender/beauty as social currency in Austen’s world; Charlotte Lucas as the novel’s realist.

U4 · 1/2

Q1, The Oath priority: warmer, run early

“More’s ‘acceptance’ of execution was narcissism dressed as principle. He chose his own soul over his family’s survival.”

Hook (5 min). Describe a time something principled you did cost someone else something they didn’t choose to lose. Margaret begged him to swear and think otherwise; Alice said “Your death’s no ‘good’ to me!” Whose acceptance matters more?
Position A. An oath is a man “holding his own self in his own hands. Like water” (Act Two): water, himself, not them. He needed Alice’s understanding to die comfortably. His family ate the cost; he ate the legend.
Position B. He sought to be left in peace, not to die: he resigned and asked Henry to leave him out of it (Act One). The State came for him; he didn’t go to it. Someone always pays for principle; he didn’t get to choose who.
Research: the historical More vs. Bolt’s More; martyrdom vs. duty to family in Catholic theology.

Q2, The Silence priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“More said ‘Silence is not denial.’ Cromwell said it was ‘most eloquent denial.’ Both were wrong. It was a weapon aimed at the King.”

Hook (10 min). Have you stayed silent and let someone draw their own conclusion: principled, or strategic?
Position A. Cromwell’s dagger analogy: silence in the room while a killing happens is guilt (Act Two). More knew the maxim “silence gives consent” and used it anyway. That’s tactic dressed in gray wool.
Position B. “In silence is my safety under the law, but my silence must be absolute” (Act Two): he wouldn’t tell Alice, Margaret, or the King. He never wrote a pamphlet. Silence is what’s left when the State owns every other word.
Research: “qui tacet consentire” in English law; silence as political strategy under authoritarian regimes.

Q3, The Law

“More said he’d give the Devil benefit of law. When the law said ‘sign or die,’ his real god was conscience, a law he made up for himself.”

Hook (5 min). Name a law you’d obey though you think it’s wrong, and one you’d break on conscience. Are those actually different?
Position A. “If it is flat, will the King’s command make it round?” (Act Two): that’s personal geometry, not law. When law agreed with him he served it; when it didn’t, he hid behind God.
Position B. He protected the law from being weaponized: the Act of Succession was a religious claim in parliamentary clothing. Once a king can make law about God, no law is safe.
Research: natural law vs. positive law; Aquinas on unjust laws; the Nuremberg defense and its opposite.

U5 · 1/2

Q1, The Frederick Question priority: warmer, run early

“Werner watched Frederick beaten and did nothing. Every courage he showed later was guilt trying to buy back that moment.”

Hook (5 min). Describe a time you saw someone wronged and stayed quiet because speaking up would cost you.
Position A. “Werner opens his mouth but closes it again; he drowns; he shuts his eyes, his mind.” He wills himself not to see. He bought his future with Frederick’s broken body: later courage pays interest on that debt.
Position B. Werner was fourteen, starving, orphaned, inside a machine built to devour dissent. If he’d intervened, two boys break instead of one. Frederick himself released him: “Maybe it’d be better if we aren’t friends.”
Research: bystander effect (Darley/Latané); Milgram obedience; German youth who resisted the Hitler Youth.

Q2, The Tracker Question priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“Werner’s radios tracked and killed resistance fighters for years. Then he used the same equipment to save one blind girl. One brave ending doesn’t erase a cowardly life.”

Hook (10 min). Estimate how many lives Werner’s radios destroyed, then how many he saved. No discussion: just the numbers.
Position A. He excels, not just follows orders; a raid he triangulated leaves a woman and child shot, and he sees the bodies. “Anyone who is not a German wants the Germans dead.” He knows exactly which side he’s on.
Position B. His options narrow at every point: use his gift or die in a mine. When a real choice finally appears, he doesn’t hesitate: “Not in years. But today. Today maybe I did.” The system ate his choices until only one remained.
Research: Arendt’s “banality of evil”; Nuremberg treatment of engineers/technicians; the White Rose, the July 20 plot.

Q3, The Blind Question

“Marie-Laure says she’s not brave, she has no choice. But then children in war zones and prisoners aren’t brave either, and that’s obviously wrong.”

Hook (5 min). Name the hardest thing you do every day that no one sees. Is it brave, or just necessary?
Position A. She hides with the knife and says “Come and get me”, not begging, commanding. Within a narrow path, she chooses courage at every step.
Position B. Her own words are the evidence: she can’t choose to see or leave. Madame Manec, who could garden and gossip instead, is the one who really chose.
Research: Aristotle on courage and choice; Frankl on meaning under constraint; child soldiers and moral responsibility.

U6 · 1/2

Q1, The Portrait priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“Basil created the portrait that destroyed Dorian. Is he the real villain of the story?”

Hook (5 min). Have you ever created something that later hurt someone (a photo, a post)? Does the creator bear responsibility for what the creation becomes?
Position A. Dorian was unexceptional before the portrait; it made him see his own beauty for the first time. “What is it but canvas and color?” Basil asks (Ch. II): Dorian answers by giving his soul for it.
Position B. The portrait is art, not magic. Dorian chose to make it his conscience-keeper and chose every cruelty after. Blaming the artist is like blaming the mirror for what it reflects.
Research: ethics of portraiture; creator-responsibility theory; the Faust legend, who bears blame, Mephistopheles or Faust?

Q2, The Corruptor

“Lord Henry didn’t corrupt Dorian. He revealed him. Would Dorian have stayed innocent forever without Henry?”

Hook (5 min). Name one person who made you aware of a desire you didn’t know you had. Did they create it, or reveal it?
Position A. Dorian was already vain and narcissistic; the portrait existed before Henry spoke. “It is the real Dorian Gray, that is all” (Ch. II): Henry revealed what was already there.
Position B. Dorian was “little more than a lad” (Ch. I); after his breakdown, Basil says “This is your doing, Harry” (Ch. II): the text’s own verdict. That’s manipulation dressed as wisdom, not revelation.
Research: the Henry/Dorian power dynamic; Plato on drawing out vs. planting; does influence require intent to be responsible?

Q3, The Wish priority: emotional anchor

“Would you sign Dorian’s deal? Eternal youth, no consequences, your soul stored elsewhere.”

Hook (10 min). Mock contract: eternal youth, soul stored elsewhere, no visible consequences. Yes or no, one sentence why. Reveal the class breakdown: that’s the debate’s starting position.
Position A. The deal removes only the visible consequences, meaning more room to experiment and live fully. “No” is fear, not ethics: privilege means never needing a deal like this.
Position B. The deal is designed to let you avoid seeing what you’re becoming: selective blindness, not freedom. A life without consequences is not a life.
Research: moral licensing and self-image maintenance; psychology of privilege and risk; the Faust bargain across cultures.

U7 · 1/2

Q1, The Moment of Grace priority: formal debate, requires text evidence

“The grandmother’s last act was moral courage. Was her moment of grace real, or just the panic of a dying woman who finally said the right thing?”

Hook (5 min). Write the last thing you’d actually say to someone about to hurt you, not what you should say. Is moral courage what you say with nothing left to lose, or what you do with everything to lose?
Position A. She manipulates all story, then reaches out: “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” and touches him. Manipulation would have worked better: this is recognition, not strategy.
Position B. She’s been a social strategist all story, adjusting her performance. Maternal warmth is her last card because she’s out of moves. Moral courage requires intention she didn’t have five minutes earlier.
Research: O’Connor’s own statements calling it “a moment of grace”; theology of grace as unearned; deathbed conversions research.

Q2, The Better Moralist

“The Misfit is more honest about morality than the grandmother. Despite being a murderer, he is the story’s real moral thinker.”

Hook (5 min). Name a fictional villain who understands morality better than the hero. What does the villain see that the hero doesn’t?
Position A. “I ain’t a good man…but I ain’t the worst neither…I call myself The Misfit because I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.” He examines morality; she performs it.
Position B. Understanding morality and living it aren’t the same. “If I had of been there I would of known”, but he chose to kill, not to find out. Honesty about violence isn’t the same as resisting it.
Research: O’Connor on The Misfit as “prophet”; Nietzsche’s slave/master morality; Kohlberg’s stages vs. ethical action.

Q3, The Reach priority: emotional anchor

“In the grandmother’s position, family dead, murderer in front of you, would you reach out and touch him?”

Hook (10 min). Eyes closed: the moderator reads the reach scene. Raise your hand if you would have reached out. Count. Open eyes: that’s the debate’s starting position.
Position A. She doesn’t say “don’t shoot me”: she says “you’re one of my own children.” That’s the first time anyone treats him as a person rather than a category.
Position B. She hasn’t screamed for her family or tried to run, only negotiated. The touch is the final negotiation, a bid for connection once every other currency failed.
Research: empathy toward those who’ve harmed you; bystander/moral disengagement studies; O’Connor’s theology of violent grace.

U8 · 1/2