Academic Debate, the Ii-toko-dori Way

This paper reports on the development and implementation of the Academic Debate course in the ELA. The course provides students with opportunities to think critically, practice constructing arguments and learn the art of perspective taking. In designing the course, instructors drew on existing knowledge from other disciplines such as Sternberg’s Triarchic Model for Successful Intelligence, the Karl-Popper Academic Debate format, students’ written reflections, answers to an exit questionnaire given at the end of each term, and empirical observations collected over a period of two years.