There will be arguments made this summer as students in the debate program travel to preparatory debate camps as part of their summer plans.

“Debate camp is a jumpstart on your preparation for next year, and there are speech and debate camps,” teacher Tami Parker said. “If you go to a speech camp, you will come out with three to five tournament-ready pieces to go that first weekend of tournaments. If we have to wait and come back, even if we work before we start travelling; the best way to get points is to start that first weekend, because so many squads aren’t ready those first couple of weekends, so one of your best things is to get in, get those points early, and be done.”

There are also benefits to debate events.

“For debate, it helps prep,” Parker said. “For policy debate, they start working, they already know their topic, so same thing, they dive deep into that topic, they come up with several different kinds of cases, several different areas, so they’re ready for that first weekend. For the other types of debate where we don’t know their topic until school starts or until July, for them, they work on what topics they think will happen during the coming year, and it helps them hone their skills. They work on refutation and judge adaptation and how to use your cross-examination time wisely, working nuances like how to run a kritik, how to beat a kritik, because there are some general arguments that you can just add and make work for whatever the topic is. So there’s a lot of that argumentation that they go ahead and really work on.

For students going to speech or debate camp, it’s a chance to get a head start on the school year.

“It’s more to help you learn the topic,” sophomore Jolen Martinez said. “You get to know how to debate just by going to debate, but you can’t actually know the material you’re going to use next year until you go to a camp, and you have to know it well if you go to that camp, and it helps you in the early days and months that you’re going to be debating.”

Like most summer camps, it’s a chance to learn in a new way.

“It provides a few different methods of teaching that we don’t get at Lovejoy,” freshman Ellie Hager said. “We would do all the practice rounds, and they would have lectures on a bunch of different topics on how to win.”

Here are some colleges and institutes offering debate camps:

ADC (Access Debate Camp): Fully Online

BFI (Beehive Forensics Institute): University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah

CBI (Champion Briefs Institute): Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida OR The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota

CDI (Comet Debate Institute): University of Texas- Dallas in Dallas, Texas

CODI (Central Oklahoma Debate Institute):University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma

DDI (Dartmouth Debate Institute): Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire

DGFI (The Robert Gass High School Summer Forensics Institute): Cal. State- Fullerton University in Fullerton, California

Digital Debate Camp: Fully online

ECLI (Edie Conway Liberation Institute): Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland

Four Star: Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond, Oklahoma

GDI (Gonzaga Debate Institute): Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington

Hoosier Debate Camp: Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana

HDI (Hurricane Debate Institute): University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida

JDI (Jayhawk Debate Institute): University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas

MDAW (Minnesota Debate and Advocacy Workshop): Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota

MSDI (Missouri State Debate Institute): Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri

NDI (Nebraska Debate Institute): Millard North High School in Omaha, Nebraska

New York City Debate Camps:Various locations in New York City, New York

PDI (Patriot Debate Institute): George Mason University

Samford University Summer Debate Institute: Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama

SDI (Spartan Debate Institute): Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan

SDI (UMKC Summer Debate Institute): University of Missouri-Kansas City in Kansas City, Missouri

WDI (Women’s Debate Institute): Audubon Center of the North Woods in Sandstone, Minnesota

WNDI (Whitman National Debate Institute): Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington

WSDI (Weber State Debate Institute): Weber State University in Ogden, Utah

UGA (Georgia Debate Institute): University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia