Newspaper Report

Class at War, RDHS’ Debate Season

On Friday, March 21^st 2014, there was a debate held in Mr. Murray’s English at Rockland District High School in room 228. The debate topic was “Did the Witches set up Macbeth?” On the affirmative side were James Stewart, Amy Balaton, and Christina Nyentap, and on the negative side were Thomas Keith, Matt Rossi, and Brennen Beattie. 

The debate started off with a three minute introduction for each side. Then came their first argument which they had five minutes for. The affirmative side started. Christina Nyentap had an awesome starting argument followed by a “Debate wedgie” as said by Murray. What she had done was screenshot a picture of the opposing Thomas Keith’s blog admitting that the witches did setup Macbeth. After that, came Thomas, he stated that Lady Macbeth took advantage of Macbeth. Afterwards was the rebuttal, which is also 5 minutes, both sides had great rebuttals against one another.  Thomas then came back at Christina for what she had done. Then came the second argument, Amy then talked about witchcraft and how it played a big factor throughout the play, then explaining why the witches set up Macbeth. Afterwards Brennen shared his argument, he explained how the witches could see the future and they knew what was bound to happen to Macbeth. Then the free-for-all, the most interesting part of every debate, there were a lot of voices raised, and many people from the crowd started getting rowdy, especially Summer Macwha. Then it was time for the last arguments, James coming for the comeback with how the witches all connected in the killings. Matt then had his point saying that the witches were just a fantasy, they were not real. After the debate Murray himself said “The arguments were strong on both sides” which was true both sides had very strong effective arguments.

After anxiously waiting, the judges came back in the room to share who had won. They claimed that the negative side had won. Judge Austin said “The negative side had short, but effective points”. Being one of the reasons why they won. Judge Sara claimed that the affirmative side kept rebutting the negative side’s rebuttals, which is not allowed in a debate. After the debate, Liyana Rudeen said “Affirmative side should have won, they had good points and even better arguments”. Affirmative sides Amy Balaton said “I felt it went very well both sides had strong points and a very thought out argument, I wish I just got to finish and say my conclusion before I was buzzed out, but all and all I thought it was a very close debate”. But, according to the judges, the negative side had won fair and square.