TDI Interview Series #2: Danielle Dosch

For the third year, The Debate Intensive is releasing a series of interviews with its staff members. The second installment of this year’s interview series features returning instructor Danielle Dosch.

Danielle debated for Immaculate Heart High School, where she was the captain of her team for two years. Danielle qualified to the Tournament of Champions her sophomore, junior, and senior years, accumulating a total of 16 career bids. Her senior year, she championed the Loyola Invitational, where she was also top speaker and top seed, the Greenhill Invitational, the Presentation Invitational, the Alta Invitational, and the College Prep School Invitational. Danielle was a finalist in the Presentation Round Robin and the Damus Invitational, where she was also first speaker. She was also the top seed and an Octafinalist at the Tournament of Champions. Danielle is now a student at UC Berkeley and the assistant coach at Immaculate Heart High School.

Danielle will be teaching at both the core and focus sessions of the Debate Intensive this summer. Hear what she has to say about her favorite arguments and working as an instructor at TDI below!

You have both attended the Debate Intensive as a student and taught as an instructor. What advice would you give to debaters trying to make the most out of camp?

Debate camp is the best opportunity a student has to make significant improvements in their skill and understanding of arguments. At no other point during the season do you have several uninterrupted weeks to work alongside the best debaters in the country — take advantage of that. The Debate Intensive directors have worked tirelessly to refine their curriculum to produce tremendous results for anyone who puts in the effort, so trust the process, do the work, and you will not be disappointed!

What arguments are you most excited to teach at The Debate Intensive this summer? How do you think younger students can improve at reading these arguments?

I am most excited to teach policy-style arguments, specifically the nuances of plan/CP/DA debate. These were the arguments I ran most frequently in high school and the arguments I coach my students to go for most often. I think students greatly undervalue the importance of impact calculus. Through judging, I’ve really come to realize how a lack of impact calculus can make a debate irresolvable. Too often, the extent of a debater’s impact comparison is pointing out that an internal link was conceded or referencing arguments made on the line by line. Instead, debaters should assume the full strength-of-link of both impacts and make arguments about why even if their opponent’s impacts were to occur, the case/DA would still outweigh.

What do you think of the January/February topic? Are there any specific aspects of the topic you like or dislike?

This has been by far my favorite topic since the compulsory national service topic in Sept/Oct of 2018. The caselist of topical affirmatives is, of course, very expansive, but I think there are decent negative generics and a reasonable amount of literature per country to allow for specific case negs. I actually much prefer prep-heavy topics to ones in which there is basically one aff and only a few negative strategies, especially since we debate this topic for longer than average. I also appreciate how this topic encourages IR-centered discussion and requires the negative to defend aid-provision, which forces debates to be more policy-leaning.

What major debate concepts do you think students most need improvement on and what is your process for teaching these concepts?

Cross-examination and flowing are two areas that I think most debaters could definitely improve on. For some reason, there has developed a trend of asking what has or has not been read once a speech ends. I do not think this is a question that one’s opponent needs to answer, but, at the very least, this is a question that must be asked during either cross-ex or prep time. In terms of CX, I think debaters often forget that cross-examination is a speech. It’s an opportunity for both debaters to clarify misconceptions, expand upon important arguments, get strategic concessions, and (arguably most important) establish perceptual dominance.

Now a fun one. If you could pick one celebrity to be your debate partner, who would it be and what arguments would you go for?

Putin, and we’d go for the Russia Hacks thumper against the Elections DA.

See our full staff list here, and sign up for camp soon to work with Danielle this summer!