books & RESEARCH PROJECTS

While feature films and documentaries on debate and youth expression have been produced for a number of years, it is only recently that book projects have emerged on the scene.   Debaters are also writing more and more books that reflect their successes in life and lessons learned.  Given the success of such ventures, the Associated Leaders of Urban Debate expects that trend to continue and is happy to serve as a resource for would-be authors.  ALOUD can provide story ideas, historical fact-checking assistance and even ghost writers if desired.   For more information, please send an email to debateleaders@gmail.com.   All of the books below are available on Amazon.com.  Here is a sampling:

BOOKS ABOUT DEBATE AND YOUTH EXPRESSION

In Cross-X, journalist Joe Miller follows the Kansas City Central High School’s debate squad through the 2002 season that ends with a top-ten finish at the national championships in Atlanta.

By almost all measures, Central is just another failing inner-city school. Ninety-nine percent of the students are minorities. Only one in three graduate. Test scores are so low that Missouri bureaucrats have declared the school “academically deficient.” But week after week, a crew of Central kids heads off to debate tournaments in suburbs across the Midwest and South, where they routinely beat teams from top-ranked schools. In a game of fast-talking, wit, and sheer brilliance, these students close the achievement gap between black and white students—an accomplishment that educators and policy makers across the country have been striving toward for years.

Here is the riveting and poignant story of four debaters and their coach as they battle formidable opponents from elite prep schools, bureaucrats who seem maddeningly determined to hold them back, friends and family who are mired in poverty and drug addiction, and—perhaps most daunting—their own self-destructive choices. In the end, Miller finds himself on a campaign to change debate itself, certain that these students from the Eastside of Kansas City may be the saviors of a game that is intrinsic to American democracy.

What Reviewers Are Saying:

"One of the 100 best books of 2006!"

- Publishers Weekly

"Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 2006!"- Amazon.com

 

In Gifted Tongues, Gary Alan Fine offers a rich description of this world as a testing ground for both intellectual and emotional development, while seeking to understand adolescents as social actors. Learning to argue and persuade in a highly competitive environment is only one aspect of life on a high-school debate team. Teenage debaters also participate in a distinct cultural world--complete with its own jargon and status system--in which they must negotiate complicated relationships with teammates, competitors, coaches, and parents as well as classmates outside the debating circuit. Considering the benefits and drawbacks of the debating experience, he also recommends ways of reshaping programs so that more high schools can use them to boost academic performance and foster specific skills in citizenship. Fine analyzes the training of debaters in rapid-fire speech, rules of logical argumentation, and the strategic use of evidence, and how this training instills the core values of such American institutions as law and politics. Debates, however, sometimes veer quickly from fine displays of logic to acts of immaturity--a reflection of the tensions experienced by young people learning to think as adults. Fine contributes to our understanding of teenage years by encouraging us not to view them as a distinct stage of development but rather a time in which young people draw from a toolkit of both childlike and adult behaviors. A well-designed debate program, he concludes, nurtures the intellect while providing a setting in which teens learn to make better behavioral choices, ones that will shape relationships in their personal, professional, and civic lives.

BOOKS WRITTEN BY FORMER DEBATERS

In Fallen Giant, author Ron Shelp—who worked within the AIG organization for more than a decade—sheds light on AIG, the company, and Hank Greenberg, the man. Through in-depth research, candid interviews, and firsthand experiences, Shelp provides a detailed look at how AIG was originally created and reveals how Greenberg’s unrelenting drive to be the best may have led to his untimely departure from AIG. Ron is a former debater and a Board member for local ALOUD partner, the IMPACT Coalition. 

 

This is our message to urban students:

Your Voice.       Your Future.        Debate.

2007 Associated Leaders of Urban Debate
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