"Homework should be banned" dies in four minutes. One side has slogans. The other side has every teacher in the building.
A good motion is narrow, two-sided, and finishable in your time box. Dokie's 500+ list is a pile. This is a filter: 120 topics grouped by room, plus how to turn one into a case.
- What makes a motion work
- Easy and middle school
- High school
- College
- Work and policy
- Build a 5-slide debate deck
- Write the motion as "This house would..." plus a specific actor and a time window. Vague nouns are not motions.
- Kill a topic if one side only has morals and the other has all the data.
- Prep three claims, one piece of evidence each, and two predicted rebuttals. That is the whole case.
- For class, 8-10 minutes per side. If you cannot outline it on one page, the topic is too wide.
- Dump your notes into GenPPT as five slides: motion, burden, three claims, rebuttal map, close.
What makes a motion work
Check four things:
- Clash. Can a reasonable person take either side without becoming a cartoon?
- Scope. Can you define terms in 30 seconds?
- Evidence. News, studies, or lived examples exist for both sides.
- Stakes. Someone in the room cares.
Rewrite "social media is bad" as "This house would ban smartphones in high school buildings during class hours." Now you can argue enforcement, mental health data, and equity.
Easy and middle school
Use these when the class is new to format. Keep definitions short.
- School should start at 9:30 or later
- Homework on weekends should be banned
- Every student should learn a musical instrument for one year
- Uniforms should be required in public middle schools
- Phones should stay in a pouch during class
- Recess should be 40 minutes, not 20
- Zoos should only house animals that cannot survive in the wild
- Video games should count as a sport in school clubs
- Students should pick one subject to drop each year
- Class pets should be allowed
- Junk food should be banned from cafeterias
- Group projects should be optional
- Every student should take public speaking in 8th grade
- Schools should teach cooking as a required class
- Book reports should be replaced by 3-minute talks
- Students should help write classroom rules each term
- Field trips should happen once a month
- Grades should include a "kindness / collaboration" score
- Kids should earn a small wage for chores
- Summer break should be six weeks, with more breaks in winter
- E-books are better than paper for assigned reading
- Competitive sports get too much school money vs arts
- Students should be allowed to retake every test once
- Pets are better companions than screens
- School should teach basic first aid to every grade
High school
- This house would replace most finals with portfolios
- High school should start after 9 a.m.
- Schools should teach personal finance as a graduation requirement
- AI tools should be allowed on homework if disclosed
- The voting age should be 16 in local elections
- College should not be treated as the default path
- Dress codes that target girls more than boys should be abolished
- Standardized tests should not be required for state graduation
- High school athletes should be paid if the school profits from streaming
- Volunteer hours should be required for graduation
- Social media apps should require parental OK under 16
- Schools should add a mental health day each quarter
- PE should be optional after grade 10
- Students should grade teachers with published summaries
- Debate should be a required semester
- Phones should be locked away for the full school day
- Trade certificates should count equal to AP credits for honor rolls
- Schools should not publish class rank
- Teen work permits should allow later hours on non-school nights
- Schools should teach how recommendation algorithms work
- Gap years should be encouraged, not treated as a risk
- Homework should cap at 90 minutes a night by policy
- Schools should defund stadiums before they cut libraries
- Students should be allowed notes on every non-language exam
- Influencer marketing to teens should be labeled like ads on TV
College
- This house would make public university tuition free, funded by a graduate tax
- Unpaid internships at for-profit companies should be illegal
- College athletes in revenue sports should be employees
- Attendance should not count toward the grade
- Generative AI should be allowed on take-home work with a methods note
- General-education requirements should be cut in half
- Colleges should publish 5-year earnings by major
- Student evaluations should not affect tenure
- Greek life should lose campus recognition after repeat hazing
- Online degrees from the same faculty should carry the same diploma
- Campus security should not partner with city police by default
- Universities should cap administrator pay relative to faculty medians
- Speech codes that punish "offensive" but legal speech should go
- Research funded by taxpayers should be open access
- Colleges should guarantee a paid internship or fail the ranking metric
- Legacy admissions should end
- Student debt for public colleges should be dischargeable in bankruptcy
- Professors should allow lecture recording by default
- STEM majors should still require two writing-intensive courses
- Universities should not run endowment-backed hedge-fund-style risk
- Campus housing should not require meal plans
- SAT/ACT should stay optional
- Graduate unions should have the same strike rights as staff
- Study abroad should count fully toward the major, not only electives
- Colleges should require a one-credit "how to cite AI" lab
Work and policy
- This house would make a four-day, 32-hour week the legal full-time default
- Remote-first should be the default for knowledge work
- Salary bands should be public inside companies over 200 people
- Employers should pay for AI tools rather than ban them
- Universal basic income should be trialed at city scale
- Facial recognition in public streets should be banned
- Platforms should be liable for political deepfakes during elections
- Congestion pricing should expand to more city cores
- Nuclear should be treated as green in subsidy law
- Meat advertising should face the same limits as alcohol in some hours
- Non-competes should be unenforceable under a salary cap
- Interns should never be unpaid, including nonprofits over a budget threshold
- Companies over 500 employees should publish pay gaps yearly
- Social media should require ID for political ads, not for all users
- Public transit should be free at point of use in cities over 1 million
- AI hiring screens should be auditable by candidates
- The workweek meeting cap should be 8 hours
- Gig workers should get portable benefits
- Cash should remain legal tender for all consumer purchases under $50
- Government should buy open-source software by default
- Billionaire space tourism should be taxed like luxury aviation
- Schools of medicine should expand faster than new sports palaces
- Local elections should be ranked-choice
- Data brokers should need opt-in, not opt-out
- A carbon tariff should apply to imports from high-emission grids
Funny motions for clubs (still two-sided if you force definitions): pineapple on pizza, cereal is soup, pets at the office, hot dogs are sandwiches, movies should cap at 100 minutes. Use them for icebreakers, not graded finals.
Build a 5-slide debate deck
Do not put 40 bullets on slide 3. Speak the case. The deck is a map for judges.
Worked case: high school AI homework
Motion. This house would allow AI tools on homework if the student discloses the tool and the prompt.
Definitions (30s). Homework = take-home work that is not a seated exam. Disclose = tool name + prompt pasted in an appendix.
Claim A. Disclosure trains the skill employers already use. Evidence: job postings that list Copilot as a tool, not a cheat.
Claim B. Ban-only policies push use into secret and make grading random. Evidence: school honor-code cases that cannot prove authorship.
Claim C. Exams can stay closed-tool. The motion does not touch seated tests.
Predicted rebuttals. "Equity: not everyone has a paid model" (answer: school-provided accounts). "Students will not learn" (answer: grade the process notes, not only the essay).
Map to the 5-slide table: motion, burden, A, B+C, rebuttal map.
Technology and media
- This house would ban smartphones in high school buildings during class hours
- Platforms should be liable for political deepfakes in the 60 days before an election
- Schools should teach how recommendation algorithms work as a required semester
- Anonymous accounts should be banned on platforms used by under-16s
- AI-generated homework should be labeled or it is an honor-code fail
- Facial recognition should stay out of school hallways
- Short-form video should not count as a cited source in research papers
- Teen influencers selling to other teens should face the same rules as TV ads
- Comment sections on news sites should be off by default
- Public libraries should lend Wi-Fi hotspots before they cut hours
- Deepfake audio of teachers should be a specific offense in the code of conduct
- Search engines used in class should default to a "sources on" view
Environment and health
- This house would treat shade as a public good in city planning
- School cafeterias should drop sugar-sweetened drinks
- Nuclear should count as green in state subsidy law
- Cities over 1 million should make transit free at the point of use
- Meat advertising to children should face the same hour limits as alcohol
- Mental health days should be a quarterly student right, not a parent excuse
- Congestion pricing should expand before another highway lane
- PFAS in drinking water should trigger a public dashboard, not a PDF
- Fast fashion returns should be taxed, not landfilled in silence
- Vaccination for public school should stay a requirement with medical exceptions only
- Indoor air after wildfire season should have a classroom CO2/PM2.5 rule
- Hospitals should publish wait times the same way airports publish delays
Funny motions (icebreakers, not finals)
Pineapple on pizza, cereal is soup, hot dogs are sandwiches, pets at the office, movies should cap at 100 minutes, group chats need a mute window, morning people should not schedule 8 a.m. debates, leftover pizza is a breakfast food. Define terms or the round is a meme.
FAQ
What are the best debate topics for students? Ones with clash and a time box: school start times, phones in class, AI on homework with disclosure, college as default.
What are easy debate topics for beginners? Uniforms, weekend homework, pineapple on pizza. Use them to learn format, then move to policy.
How do I choose a good debate topic? Clash, scope, evidence, stakes. Kill it if one side only has slogans.
What are good college debate topics? Tuition models, unpaid internships, athlete employment, open access, speech codes.
How do I prepare a case? Definitions, burden, three claims with one source each, two rebuttals. Five slides. Build them in GenPPT.
For related lists see informative speech topics, TED talk topics, and unique college presentation topics.
