How EXL Works
EXL class days will run 9AM to 9PM from Sunday, July 20th until Friday, August 1st, with the middle Saturday, July 26th, being a student 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 typically start a little later and take the students to a Dim Sum Brunch in Chinatown before beginning the second week of camp up again.
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 with a intensive lecture-formatted discussion of some of the key ideas that drive current events and politics: for instance, Nationalism, Economics, Government Structures, Polls & the Media, Liberalism & Conservatism, and so on. The afternoon is usually filled with active practicing, both in the terms of speeches, analysis workshops, and presentational practice. After dinner, we conclude the day with a quieter, more focused seminar on more specific topics, such as Cold War History, Race & American Public Policy, Research Methods, Wealth Gaps, and Terrorism.
Practice speeches are formatted both to ensure quality of chances to practice. EXL will never boast of having the most practice speeches of any institute in the country, as we do not feel that students gets a lot out of short, rapidfire feedback sessions. Therefore, we mix practice sessions up; sometimes students will get more speeches in, while at others, they’ll have the chance to have extended work sessions with individual coaches, helping us to focus in on particular issues and weaknesses in the student’s presentation.
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 an actual world problem. Finally we finish the institute with a showcase speech, giving the students a chance to speak in a formal setting for non-institute staffers 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.
