The 2024 the RKS is now accepting applications!
Check out our sessions for more details. In-person and online options available. The unique RKS experience will be present at both.
An Adaptive & Collaborative Approach
At the RKS, we believe not only that students at all levels are worthy of instruction, but also that the most skilled and most talented students benefit from an adaptive and collaborative environment in which everyone matters. The success of the RKS scholars and college alumni in competitive debate is but one metric by which to measure our methods. The character of and the lifelong skills students take with them into the future is another. If debate is to be its best version of the competitive, intensive, and intellectual engaging activity that we love, then our format for education needs to reflect our values. Debate’s benefits are best realized in an environment in which faculty and instructors see themselves as educators first and coaches second. Students most benefit when all approaches to argumentation are honed and tested together. We will teach you where you are at and in what styles you are interested. We believe that “the clash of civilizations” is a bad frame for understanding debate’s strengths and possibilities. We’re far more interested in developing curriculum that can enhance student learning and competitive success in the world we live in, not the world for whom some are still nostalgic.
At Wake Forest, we take up this challenge to produce competitively successful, whole, and holistically-minded debaters in honor of our own experiences as educators and in honor of the legacies of Ross Kennedy Smith and Maya Angelou. Ross K. Smith, for whom the RKS Wake Workshop is named, was a legendary debate coach and speaker at Wake Forest for over thirty years. As the former director of the Wake Debate program and the summer workshop, Ross instilled a belief that the debate workshop is not summer “camp” but a place where really hard work is done in the name of becoming the best debater possible. The summer debate workshop was to be a place where both people and arguments grow. Ross’ legacy lives on in the many coaches, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, educators and other civil servants who emerged under his tutelage. Ross Kennedy Smith inspired a passion for policy debate in all its iterations. The way he lives on here is perhaps best encapsulated in the gratitude he offered to the debate community in a note titled “Thanks to our competitors,” where he said:
“Thank you competitors. Every one of you, coach and debater, who face our teams and push our teams to think harder, research deeper, get outside of our narrower confines. You pose questions to our coaching, without which questions we could not learn and improve.”
In his spirit, at the RKS students will learn how to develop argument – to critically read, think, analyze, compare and speak with one another and competitively against one another, in order to become the best in their craft.
Maya Angelou was an acclaimed poet and writer (best known for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), civil rights activist, and professor at Wake Forest University. In 2008 when discussing her role as an educator, Angelou said, “I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes. But I had to work at Wake Forest to know that.” She also said, “I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.” In her spirit, at the RKS we facilitate an environment in which students can practice what they preach. An environment in which we will practice excellence in argumentation, strategy, delivery, and an environment in which concepts come to life because we strive to apply them to life.
So, at the RKS you will do the work to make yourself the best you can be in what we are here--individually and collectively--doing. May the best argument win!
See how it works!
What RKS Alumni Have to Say About the RKS
On the question “Would you recommend the RKS Workshop to others?” 100% said yes.
“very organized and a great camp.”
“They were all super helpful with redos and argument development.”
“These instructors willingly took time even out of lab to help me with blocks, skills, and any questions I had. They were always available and taught me a ton of new ideas.”
“For me, I think I never recognized the imaginative possibilities and avenues I can explore within the realm of policy. Black framework especially opened up my mind to what is capable and to an extent, expected, from the top debaters in the nation. I learned how to think.”
“Having a healthy approach to debate - this year in particular, I felt that all of the instruction was meeting people where they were and not making anyone feel less than/embarrassed to ask questions, ask for help understanding an argument, etc. All of the instructors really made themselves available and were willing to sit down and explain things thoroughly. Having a bunch of different judges for practice rounds helped us become more familiar with our instructors, even if we never worked with them in a group. The different breakout groups helped make sure that it wasn't just a 65 person lab with only a handful of people being confident enough to participate, and so it seemed like everyone got a chance to feel listened to/helped out.”
“Working with DB was one of the best experiences of my entire debate career. He's really good at relaying the knowledge he has accumulated to students, and would answer all of my questions even though I would ask him a lot of annoying ones. Talking with him really shaped me intellectually and I'm really glad that he is on the RKS staff.”
“not only did they help me when it came to thinking and writing and being offensive in debate but i feel like they also helped me individually throughout the camp when i had personal issues regarding debate and they helped me through dealing with my positionality to debate”
“Really good balance between work and relaxation. I loved being able to work individually with lab leaders.”
“All of these instructors were extremely helpful and supportive in my research and practice debate feedback. I was able to discuss strategy for the upcoming season and give redos in front of them. Shanara was extremely helpful because she always made sure to never hold back when giving us feedback; she never sugar coated comments, not because she had bad intentions but because she wanted to see us succeed and knew she had to keep it real with us. Ruby and Madison were very kind to me and helped me improve my skills on the more policy side of things which is very different from my usual debate practice.”
“DB- he truly is a genius. he cares about us and dedicated so much time to us outside of his hours. he treated us equally, which I was not expecting tbh. Coming to a camp of ToC champions and top speakers, I was very hesitant to believe that anyone would genuinely see any potential in me. See that I could one day also reach that level of excellence. He answered my questions and talk me to live, breath the literature. If you are convinced of your own cases, it's a lot easier to gain that ethos and convince/ indoctrinate someone else.”
“i got a lot of time to work with instructors”
“Amber, after a round with me and *****, let all of us give rebuttal redos over and over again until the speeches were to our satisfaction. To have someone sit down and be so patient and understanding, letting us stop and restart the speeches and offering feedback within the confines of the 40 minute period to give redoes that we had was so meaningful. Coming from a school without a regular coach or squad room/set of people to listen to rebuttal redoes over and over again, it meant more than I can quantify to have a space to keep on giving speeches even if they're bad and not worry about being judged personally or neglected for giving a bad speech.”
“I loved how RKS didn't divide people into lab groups. Learning as a united collective was great because, although I wasn't one of the best teams here, I got to work alongside the best debaters and learn from them as well as my lab leaders. Also, it took the hyper-competition out of camp and made learning more of a formative experience.”
“it helped a lot to have [practice debates] and to have the rebuttal redoes BUILT into the schedule because it forced us to rewrite those speeches and go back. At a few other camps, debaters are freaked out about having practice rounds because they aren't reassured that it's just to get back into debates on the topic, and should be an educational rather than stressful experience. DB especially and all of the judges made sure that we realized that the rounds were for our benefit and weren't going to be used against us should we do poorly, which was super important and helped me to take risks in practice debates.”
RKS
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