RKS Online delivers the RKS experiences adapted for a digital yet situated experience
Building and Improving our adaptive and collaborative approach
We did not anticipate having to move the RKS online in past summers, but it gave us an opportunity to hone our approach to especially suited to facilitate intimate and collaborative environments in changing conditions. RKS online delivers the same content and form adapted for the times — debate your instructors, create signature files, fine-tune skills and strategy, and more! You will have the same instructors as those who will be in-person. Giving you very similar opportunities - listening to lectures, giving practice speeches, working on files and engaging in practice debates.
Innovation in action: Brown bag lunch series
RKS Online builds in unique opportunities for deeper engagement that you won’t find with other online debate camps. The Brown Bag Lunch series provides students optional lab time with instructors to dive into topic literature and popular debate literature for a more comprehensive understanding of the concepts behind the arguments. Brown Bag workshops are regularly tailored to future lecturers. For example, on the CJR topic we read CeCe McDonald’s abolitionist writings and then discussed incarceration and abolition with CeCe personally. We also workshopped The Undercommons and then dove in deeper in talks with Stefano Harney and Fred Moten.
Online pricing
$650 per week, $600 for those with early discounts by May 1.
Lectures and Workshops Delivered in Previous Summers
Special Talks with:
Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, authors of The Undercommons
CeCe McDonald, Black trans prison abolitionist, and activist
John Gillespie, author of “On the Prospect of Weaponized Death”
Edxie Betts, Black, and Native trans abolitionist and organizer
Sarah Chaudhry, abolitionist lawyer
Jarius Grove, Prof. of IR who writes about ecology and geopolitics, author of Savage Ecology
Featured Lectures:
Framing out the AFF with Insurgency Arguments
Theories of Language and Law
Model Minority K Strategy
Humanism, Liberalism, Sovereignty
Cybernetics
Logistics, Debt, and Racial Capitalism
The Art of Petty
Psychoanalysis
Baudrillard and Ecology
Heidegger and Bataille
Concepts and History of Policing
How to Approach (and Answer) Race-based Arguments
The History of Black Protest '
Marxism and the Prison
Dealing with Tournament Anxiety
Mutual Preference Judging Strategy
Disability and Incarceration
Abolition Politics
Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Ecologies
………..and many, many more!
96% of attendees said they would recommend RKS online
Here’s what RKS ALUMNI said about RKS online:
“I love the no lab policy -- it really made the camp feel like one gigantic hive mind family and I felt like I could talk to whoever I wanted to get feedback.”
“I really enjoyed the focus on research and the argument innovation at this camp. It definitely isn't rivaled.”
“the staff and debaters here are amazing and definitely better than another camp ive been too. This camp make you feel part of a family in a time where everyone is lonely at home.”
“DSRB- i don't rlly know where to start. From the black fantastic to roasting the fuck outta framework, DSRB was there for me and rlly helping me to flesh out the most important arguments. I learned a lot from her just like last year, she's become like a second mother to me.”
“Iggie really really helped me with my aff. I've never ran a K Aff before much less a performative one, and his one on one discussions about the aff with me really helped me understand how to piece together the aff and understand what I need to do, and also he helped me with framework blocks and just whenever I talked to him I walked away with my head filled to the brim with new information and learnings. Iggie really made up the bulk of my independent aff crafting assistance and my time on zoom with him was a major part of why camp was so amazing, I'm so glad I got to be exposed to his wisdom and everyone else and RKS's wisdom as well!”
“Taylor helped us construct the best affirmative we have ever written and helped me understand the relationship between blackness and nativeness significantly better.”
“Beau- Taught me more in a week of skills lessons than I learned in a year-always available, encouraging-made debate feel less daunting and more like something that was possible to succeed in”
“Anthony's RFDs were FIRE. Although he did roast the crap out of us for not extending or realizing the obvious, he really helped my partner and I focus on what we needed to do to win the debate. This was the same when we debated him during our practice rounds, except when he was debating us, we learned while we debated lol”
“Coming into RKS from being at camps based on the lab structure, I was honestly skeptical Wake's decision to extend the "big tent" to the camp but I was wrong. It felt like everyone was just in one big lab and it really is true that with enough initiative anyone can really work with any lab leader they want. Instead of having to compete with other students to learn, lab leaders made the time to talk to us out of lab and were always willing to help. Instead of breakouts being split up by skill like at other camps I have been too, they were split up by interest which allowed us to learn from each other. The quality of evidence produced was also superior to my camps from previous years and I think that this is because many of the lab leaders have and or are obtaining PHDs in the fields of scholarship we are studying and thus are able to guide us to the correct places research wise. The lab leaders simply cared a lot about what they were doing and are committed to producing champions.”
“DB taught me a lot of insightful and interesting lessons. I learned so much from the reading group and the morning lectures. He taught me a lot about strategy in debate, alternative evidence in debate, drills, cross ex, and helped me a lot with redoes.”
“Calum's lecture over what the resolution's lexical and verbal implications are was really helpful in establishing what i wanted to run during the year and i am certain that i'm gonna come back to everyone during the year at least once for help on strategy and the aff, to get even better.”
“Amber helped me tremendously with redoes and the wording of arguments in rebuttals, how to make each argument in rebuttals succinct but impactful! The lectures she gave were really interesting and I learned a lot about the topic, history, history that can be used as powerful examples in debate rounds.”
“While all the instructors were really smart, Reed answered all of our questions in slack, listened to extra redos we gave, debated us to help us solidify our arguments, read our blocks, and was just all around helpful!”