How EXL Works
EXL class days will run 9AM to 9PM. The middle Saturday is the free day. During the free day, students will have the chance to explore Boston and see the sights, or simply rest on their own, do laundry, etc. On the Sunday after the free day, we’ll sleep in a little, and take the students to a Dim Sum Brunch in Chinatown before beginning the second week of camp.EXL is an intensive program on its 11 instructional days, with a mix of classes and workshops, practice speeches in various formats, and the like.
Students at EXL will not file for their own practice speeches, or be given busy work at any point during the institute; 100% of the time at EXL will be spent working directly with faculty.
The typical day of EXL starts and ends with a discussion of some of the key ideas that drive current events and politics: each day or pair of days will be built around a theme; themes include Economics, Human Rights, Power Elites, Law, Mass Power, and Disenfranchisement. The afternoon is usually filled with practice speeches, workshops on speaking techniques and other methods, and work in small lab groups on specific problems — labs will not be stable through the camp but will be grouped each day based on particular student needs.
At the end of the institute, we mix together all the concepts we’ve learned into wide ranging discussions of some of the most interesting areas of American policy and the globe today, to bring all that conceptual information and ideas together, to show how it applies to actual world problems. One of the key lessons of extemp is how interrelated various issues are; these sessions bring that concept home.
Finally we finish EXL with a showcase speech, giving the students a chance to speak in a formal setting for fresh eyes drawn from the rest of the Summit staff before they leave for home.
We’ve found this schedule is a good balance for students; it tends to leave some free periods in the day, and a free day in the middle, to give students the chance to absorb concepts and rest mentally, while giving them as much exposure to new ideas and practice as they can productively and healthily grasp in the time available.
Analysis Workshops
Many extemp topics could be the subject of books and doctoral dissertations, so the possibilities involved in answering a question are vastly beyond the seven minute limit. But the seven minute limit also imposes a strong constraint that helps students clarify their thoughts, forcing them to select the best, most cogent argument that appeals to any audience.
At EXL our topic discussions are designed around giving the students the knowledge and ability to see where the strongest arguments lay. Our workshops include a discussion of governmental power and legitimacy, which touches upon everything from campaign finance reform to instituting regime change in Iraq to constructing new governments in Africa. We’ll talk about economics, and how trade with China affects the housing market in the US and Senate elections in Michigan. We’ll talk about polls and tracking; which ones to listen to, which to ignore, and how to read a poll to really know where a politician’s strength lies — and how often the press is wrong.
Extemp is about current events, and ultimately current events revolve around only a few themes: economics, mass power, elite power, human rights, law, and disenfrachised peoples. These are the themes we build EXL’s lectures around, and these are the themes our students will know how to look for going forward.
Once a student understands how power and diplomacy interact, the student can draw a question on, say, Russia’s relations with Iran, and trace the interests involved, the motivations of the leaders, and connect external relations with internal politics, and answer the question convincingly and correctly without having a single source that talks directly about Russia and Iran’s relationship. The student who knows how markets work won’t need a lecture on the housing market today and the stock market tomorrow; instead a broad understanding together with a few key details, and the student is ready to go.
We also think learning is best done collaboratively. We have the luxury of avoiding large lectures, running at the speed of the teacher. We instead work in seminar style, with our small group of students learning together, and applying their knowledge immediately to their own thoughts and ideas. Our seminars on topic areas most closely resemble college workshops; we expect our students to collaborate, to learn from each other, and to participate.
Structure
Extemp is an event with relatively few steadfast rules and guidelines; a student has to draw a question and answer it, using articles and resources. The rules restricting speaker are minimal.
However, the conventions of extemp often seem more binding than the official rules. Most camps will teach their One Way of constructing an extemp speech, and not allow students to deviate from rigid methods. Many of these camp formulas can get down to the sentence level in their specificity. Additionally, some implicitly or explicitly look down on other approaches as “not real extemp.”
We think that formulas and pre-defined structures are an excellent start for students new to extemp, as they provide a great framework for a new student. However, formulas will impair advanced, experienced students from doing all they could. As speakers mature and learn, rigid frameworks should be gradually rejected. Part of speaking well is finding your real voice, and your own style.
The best students do this instinctively, but it can never hurt to have a little help. EXL rejects the belief that there is only one approach, only one structure that leads to good extemporaneous speaking. We believe students do best when they know the reasons why they answer the questions in a certain way, and work out their style among a certain level of options. Nothing is sacred in the structure of extemp; and convention is best when it survives rigorous questioning.
So, we start from the basic premise of extemp: answering the question. We talk about different ways to answer different questions. We encourage students to come up with their own approaches. We teach the basic Toulmin-derived claim/warrant/impact argumentation style shared with debate events. We’ll examining existing techniques, such as Unified Analysis and the Layered Analysis, and hybrids of the two. And we’ll encourage students to develop a strategy to answering every question that fits the question and what they want to achieve, together with a number of strategic options. Most of all, we want to engage and tap our students’ own creativity and own ideas on how best to answer the question and deliver effective analysis in a limited time.
At the end of our two weeks, we hope everyone, including ourselves, will have different ideas on how to approach extemp than we started. We can teach new ways of approaching analysis, but above all, we want our students to teach us something in return; and our workshops, lectures, seminars and discussions are all dedicated to asking, and answering, these questions.
Speaking & Presentation
Like everything else in EXL, we question presentational patterns typical to extemporaneous speaking. We discourage the adoption of the “typical extemper style” and encourage students to adopt a natural, fluent style suitable both for extemp and the world beyond. Extemp speakers typically believe they have to speak in a style that represents the accumulation of previous good speakers’ bad habits; while we believe a natural, clear speaking style best helps students.
Our staff will include guest appearances by some of the best speaking coaches and former competitors in Extemp today. Rigorous practice speaking schedules will not only allow students to get work on speaking, but each set of practice speeches will also allow students to integrate the concepts they have just learned into actual speeches of their own; and get feedback immediately from their lecture or seminar leaders. We do not and will not claim to have the most practice speeches of any lab; quantity of speeches robs the students of a chance to work intensively with these coaches in favor of quick, rapid-fire feedback. Instead, we believe in fewer, longer sessions that provide iterative feedback and true improvement.
