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Show 199 THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH This project addresses the needs of high school debate programs by creating three lesson plans of increasing difficulty for each of the three debate events common among high schools in Utah and throughout the United States. Pedagogically, these lesson plans function as a resource for under-funded debate teams and new coaches with limited debate experience. A review of articles focusing on forensics curriculum reveals that new information is sorely needed, as debate has significantly changed over the past decade. This project seeks to develop in-roads to addressing the needs of high school debate programs. Foren-sics pedagogy has long been an important part of the competitive debate world. Debate education is important for developing critical thinking and communication skills and promoting academic ad-vancement. Many studies have shown that students who engage in competitive debate tend to have higher graduation and matriculation rates, and better performance on standardized tests ("Scholastic Benefits of Speech and Debate Activities," National Forensics League). This powerful form of pedagogy is struggling in the face of budget cuts for extra-curricular programs. In Utah, there are a few well-es-tablished debate programs in high schools, but many more do not have the funding or the staff to run a fully-functional team. There are very limited material and educational resources available to support debate education. These lesson plans are used by the Forensics team at the University of Utah to support their service-learning efforts. As part of these efforts, college students provide instruction to local high schools through periodic workshops that include lectures, recommended readings, activities, and evaluation of student learning. The lesson plans rely on specific methods to cultivate positive outcomes. The initial results show that both high school students and their debate coaches find these modules to be extremely helpful in both increasing understanding of debate events and fostering competitive skills. In the future, these lesson plans will be published for classroom use in high school environments as a means to encourage comprehension and proficiency in competitive forensics. Overall, these lesson plans provide a necessary (and currently absent) pedagogical tool for forensics education in a high school setting. COLLABORATIVE FORENSICS PEDAGOGY: BEST PRACTICES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS A. Leilani Harvey (Michael Middleton) Department of Communication University of Utah undergraduate student experts on teaching A. Leilani Harvey Michael Middleton |