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How do you facilitate in-class debates?

Julianne Horowitz

I ran a very successful debate about the dropping of the atomic bombs just to change things up as part of my Unit 7 1750-Present course. It took almost two weeks of class time to help students prepare and organize their research, write claims and counterclaims, and practice debating.  It was really amazing what on-level learners can do with that kind of time, BUT it's not something I can fit in every year or more than one time a year. 

Does anyone have any strategies for running successful debates in class, using less class time?

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    I love this! And I encounter similar issues. I am doing a trial at this very moment though that I only took 1 1/2 class periods to prepare for and the debate itself is only taking 1 class period, so 2 1/2 days altogether. I did this by super pairing back and scaffolding and streamlining the prep. So I used an activity I found online about the congo free state and modified it and then put it in slideshow format like this. I made this slideshow editable by ALL students, and I split the class into 4 groups. They all put their arguments right there on the slideshow, and they can also all SPY on one another's arguments which was a fun little added element. Doing it this way I think allows the whole process to happen faster and be more casual.