Product Description

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. 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. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #412821 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

Review
Gifted Tongues is a judicious, clear, and entertaining read. Fine's story is well prepared with rich anecdotes and tidbits from a youthfully passionate community with intellectual resources beyond their years. . . . Fine exposes the world of high school policy debate with an outsider's fascination and an insider's precision. -- Review

An illuminating and considered look into the world of competitive high school policy debate. -- Timothy M. O'Donnell, Argumentation and Advocacy

Fine exposes the world of high school policy debate with an outsider's fascination and an insider's precision. -- Eli Brennan, Controversia

Keen observations, interpretation and cultural reflection.... A very useful piece of information for anyone interested in American adolescent culture. -- Anouk van Aanholt, American Studies International

The clarity, readability, and insight of Fine's writing make [this] book important and accessible for those who work with adolescents. -- Erik W. Larson, Contemporary Sociology

Review
A well documented portrait of high school debate, exploring its culture and offering theoretical insight about argumentation and adolescence. . . . The clarity, readability, and insight of Fine's writing make the book important and accessible for those who work with adolescents, whether in activities such as debate in a classroom, or in a community setting.
(Erik W. Larson Contemporary Sociology )

Fine very accurately pinpoints the specific task the high school debates take on within the whole range of discourse, but never lets its cultural aspects move far out of sight. It is this combination of keen observations, interpretation and cultural reflection that makes the book a very useful piece of information for anyone interested in American adolescent culture.
(uk van Aanholt, "American Studies International )

An illuminating and considered look into the world of competitive high school policy debate that reveal--all at once--the good, the bad, the peculiar, the ugly, and the truly remarkable about high school debate.
(Timothy M. O'Donnell Argumentation and Advocacy )

Gifted Tongues is a judicious, clear, and entertaining read. Fine's story is well prepared with rich anecdotes and tidbits from a youthfully passionate community with intellectual resources beyond their years. . . . Fine exposes the world of high school policy debate with an outsider's fascination and an insider's precision.
(Eli Brennan Controversia )

Review
Gifted Tongues offers a subtle, nuanced examination of a previously unstudied social world. It is well written, persuasively argued, and absolutely fascinating. This book will be of value to social psychologists, sociologists of culture, and to readers concerned about adolescence and education. There are also many debate coaches and legions of former debaters who, like myself, will find it interesting to discover what has happened to high school debate.
(Joel Best, University of Delaware )

Customer Reviews

ATTN: High School Policy Debaters and Coaches
I debated in the National Forensics League and the Urban Debate League for two years, and GIFTED TONGUES does a never-before-seen job in detailing the high school policy debate sub-culture. GIFTED TONGUES is the only book in the market that goes into the workings of several modern high school policy debate teams. Other books that claim to attempt to describe policy debate are out of date with the times.

GIFTED TONGUES might not have much insight into complex policy theory, but it's defintely worth your time if you're a novice HS debater OR a debate coach who wants advice to increase team membership, watch for pitfalls, and promote team morale.

An important, well-written book
This is an outstanding book. Gary Alan Fine looks at high school policy debate from the point of view of an academic sociologist. The subtitle says that this book is about high school debate and the adolescent culture, but Fine does much more than deal with that: This is the only ethnographic research into the subculture of high school debaters that has ever been attempted.

Sounds deadly dull, doesn't it? Well, it's not. This is, in part, because Fine was a high school debater, and his son was a high-level, national circuit debater; thus, Fine has a feel for the human side of the activity. Further, he is one of those rare academic researchers who can weave the results of his research into a well-written narrative.

I coached high school debate for fifteen years. In my view, Fine captures what it really feels like to be part of an activity that is highly valued by adults but not at all understood by them. He relates the exhilaration of winning, the camaraderie of being part of a team, and the frustrations of working oneself to the brink of a breakdown doing something that not even one's parents or friends actually understand or care about.

But why should anyone not associated with high school debate care?

We are constantly told that education is in crisis and that US students don't do anything well-- except wear baseball caps backwards and listen to rap music. Obviously, that's an exaggeration, and most kids and schools are doing fine. But there is a whole subculture of high school kids-- the debaters-- who are doing better than "fine"; they're willing to spend literally hundreds of hours a year researching complex social and political issues and to subject themselves to the searing pressures of competitive public speaking as they advocate positions on those issues.

Understanding what makes those kids tick is important, if for no other reason than that a large fraction of lawyers and legislators are former debaters. These kids are literally going to be running the world some day.

So, Fine's study is important. It is also good reading, and, since it does not deal with debate theory at all, it's accessible to non-debaters. In fact, it might be most important for those who haven't had any contact with the world of debate to read it.

I highly recommend this sensitive, compelling book.

(My one and only complaint about this book is the picture on the cover. I have never, ever seen a debater look like that. Indeed, it looks like a kid trying to impersonate Hitler. Why did the production staff select that picture?)

A good guide to what debate's really about
Fine is a sociologist, and so you find out a lot here about the culture of debate. I found this right on target as both an old regional policy debater (similar to the Minnesota teams profiled in the book) and the parent of a national circuit policy debater (similar to the teams Fine's son participated in). Fine does a great job explaining the differences between these and the tension between them.
There's NO debate theory or how-to in this book -- but then those books don't really contain a consideration of the culture of debate, either.