Lerner: The High School Debate

Lerner, in his essay, establishes himself as a graduate of a high school debate team looking back on his experiences in public speaking. He begins by demonstrating the way that high school debate is an extremely stressful environment that looks almost cultic to the untrained eye. The prime example of this perceived cultic activity would be the spread; a style of debate focused on presenting more arguments in the allotted time than the defense could possibly refute. Lerner, while spreading during a debate, says that he would briefly gain access to a state of mind where his words would come to him as an extension to the construct of the English language rather than the material he was trying to argue. After debates came wild parties which