A New School Year, A New Annual Theme!

Hello everyone! Welcome back to school, and welcome to another fun History Day year! As always, we hope to use this blog to start discussions about History Day topics and themes and share our two cents about the goings-on with the program.

I have already received several questions about this year’s theme, Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. It’s a brand new never-been-done-before theme, and naturally it raises a lot of questions. If you haven’t yet read the theme sheet or looked through the theme book, you can get them from our website here.

I want to devote the next couple of blog posts to this theme, and I thought today I would touch on the first aspect: Debate.

So, what is the definition of “debate”? Here are a few I found (using dictionary.com):
- a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints: a debate in the Senate on farm price supports.
- a formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.
- deliberation; consideration.

Ok, so let’s look at some of the key words in those definitions: discussion, opposing viewpoints, contest, affirmative, negative, advocated, deliberation, consideration. Now we are getting somewhere. Debates, in essence, are conflicts between two parties with opposing viewpoints.

You may also have noticed some differences in the definitions. The first two indicate that debates are formal processes. We’ve all heard of debate club, right? Or presidential debates when two people stand at podiums and argue their points of view on issues? Yes, those are definitely debates. But consider the third definition: a debate is a deliberation, a consideration of opposing viewpoints. In other words, debates don’t have to be formal processes. They can be arguments between individuals, groups of people, etc.

I encourage you to take this broad definition of “debate” as you start to look for your topics. I was emailing with a student last week who expressed an interest in the Progressive Era of the late 19th century. During that time, there were a lot of arguments over the proper course America should take as it adjusted to the changes of the industrial revolution. Who should take care of the poor, or should they be taken care of at all? What is the safest length for a work day – 8 hours? 10 hours? 12? These large questions started debates across the country. Maybe they weren’t formal debates, but opposing viewpoints did write their own newspapers and broadsides to get their points of view across to the public. They held marches and protests. Any of these social topics would fit within the debate part of this annual theme, as long as you incorporate both sides of the issue in your topic.

Questions? Write us in the comment box below so everyone can benefit!

Next time I will tackle the concept of “Diplomacy.” Yay!