The Balance Debate
Module 1, Activity 3.3 - Equity
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:

What is fair and what is equal are often different. In addition, what happens in the media sometimes adds to people's biases about disadvantaged groups. This lesson teaches students about stereotyping and ethnocentrism, and gives them a chance to practice dialectic thinking skills by debating these difficult issues.

Resources:

For more information on debate see the web site of the Saskatchewan Elocution and Debate Association
- internet access to select one of the two articles (see task one)
- video clip of an informal debate
- a flow sheet to check work (.rtf) or (.doc)
- moderator's script (.rtf) or (.doc)
- informal assessment tool (.rtf) or (.doc)

Activities:

Task One -
Students will read either the article entitled Cultural and Racial Diversity in Broadcast Journalism or or the one called Ethnic and Visible Minorities in the News. Before they start reading, be sure you have pre-read to find key points and highlight stylistic choices for yourself. Before having students write their summaries, highlight the principle of reducing the work to a third of its former length while retaining the main points.

Task Two - Learning about informal debate
In the process of learning about informal debate, students must do three things. They will start with understanding what clash is and practice clashing on a pre-made flow sheet (see the student version of this lesson).

Objectives:

You will be able to
- listen with purpose and concern for ideas.
- understand the concepts of stereotyping and ethnocentrism.
- speak to share thoughts, opinions, and feelings.

View other lessons for the main objective.

Instructional Strategies:

Task 1 - Reading for Meaning (direct)
Task 2 - Cloze Procedure (indirect)
Task 3 - Debate

Task Three - Debating Equity Practice
In this task, students work through the steps of preparing for a debate and debating. These stages will take several days.

On the first day, divide students into sides and have them conduct research on equity in journalism. The articles you read in task one should provide a good introduction.

Once students have completed the research, have them organize their ideas into points. A student should prepare a minimum of five points he wants to say or a mix of up to five points and questions. Encourage students to predict what their opponents will say and make points to counter their opponents arguments. This helps students focus on dialectic thinking skills.

Read the moderator's script before choosing a moderator, and structure your room as suggested in the student version of this lesson. The debate may take up to an hour depending on the number of students in the class. Remind students to keep a flow during the debate. If you choose to have the students hand in their flow sheets, it will be easy for you to assess who was able to follow the "flow" of the arguments and who was not.

Assessment and Evaluation:

Typically, you would evaluate both process and product during informal debate in the classroom. You will need to evaluate the moderator slightly differently than you do the debaters. The sample evaluation focuses on the process of preparing, participating and speaking and listening.

If you choose to do a more formal debate, ballots for assessing debating in various styles are available from the Saskatchewan Elocution and Debate Association (SEDA). Choose The Step-by-Step Guide to Debate to view resources.

SEDA has a number of great resources for teachers. If you would like to modify or extend this idea, you might choose to look at other teacher resources on the same page listed above.

Last Updated
May 30, 2005

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The Balance Debate Module 1, Activity 3.3 - Equity Teacher Page (student page for this lesson)

The Balance Debate
Module 1, Activity 3.3 - Equity
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)