The zoo debate was interesting, we got to be on both sides of the debate. It was something I have never done before, and I really enjoyed it. There were some parts that were really long and challenging, but there was a partner to help you out. 

At the start, we started assigning homework like reading the articles and filling in organizers, we were ready for our first debate. I was on the yes side. Which was allowing animals to be kept in zoos. My first partner was Emily, we tried to  find the best evidence. Then we would look at the opposition and see what they did.   We didn’t really start debating though, we started debating when we switched partners and sides. I chose Jacob to be my partner, we also got the opposite side. It was really amazing to see both sides of the argument and how each side had its own evidence to prove their claim. There were two organizers our teacher gave to us. Either the article supported both sides, or the article only supported one side. You have to make the judgment on which one you fill out. 

Near the start, you might run into another problem. Which is you don’t have enough evidence. This may lead to changing a reason and claim. Or switch articles and websites to try to get more information. When you are done getting enough evidence/information the teacher shares an organizer with you. Then you write your best evidence and reason inside the boxes with your partner. Not only do you have to fill in the boxes, your partners claim and yours can not be alike. When you are done with that, you start to write the counter. A counter is basically when someone says their reasoning and evidence you have to find a way to prove that person wrong. This may take a long time because you have to find evidence in websites for a particular part. What I mean by that is, you have to read the opposing sides argument then think why might that not be true. At class, me and Jacob were sharing evidence and what website we found it in. This is really helpful because your partner might find something that you need and you might find something your partner needs. Jacob then came up with a great idea to make a slideshow and put animals that have zoochosis. It showed lots of things like biting their own hands, and pacing around. Before we knew it, it was time to present. The argument would basically go like: The opposition says their introduction, then we say our introduction. After it would be their turn to say one reason that animals should be kept in zoos, then we do the same thing but also add a counter. Then vice versa, after we are both done the opposition showed their slideshow at the end. While we did our slideshow when Jacob was talking about his paragraph.

In conclusion the debate was really fun and interesting, I have never done a debate before so this is my first time. I liked working with a group and discussing evidence and reasoning. I hope you enjoyed listening to my first debate, and I hope you learned something new about debating. 

My debate is down here!