Literature is not important and should not be taken as an obligatory class.

Thanks to my opponent for his response. "I thought most people will know that knowing the ending to Harry potter is not as important as math but this might lead into another debate. I think Harry potter is simply for entertainment purposes and there might be morals and messages. Science comes up in most doctors in order to perform anything on their patients or say anything, they must have knowledge of science. Environmental workers need knowledge of science. A gardener will also need to know science. As for math, many people use stats and averages. Examples are insurance workers and stat keepers for major sports. " First off, I don't know that Harry Potter is taught in most Literature courses. However, all of those jobs you mentioned also require an appreciation of "morals and messages". So thank you for establishing more jobs that the teaching of literature factors in to. "I asked someone and learnt that BOP does not mean the title of the debate or core of the debate. ." You clearly have a fundamental misunderstanding of how debate works, then, if you had to ask someone what the burden of proof meant. "I never stated that kids ONLY learn vocabulary from a vocabulary book. I was just making a point that if literature were not not to be taken as an obligatory class, vocabulary would still be learned. If you look at common vocabulary books like wordly wise, there are pages of excersises that are to the point on what the words mean and they give you thinking question on the words. " That vocabulary exercises exist was never a point of contention. Again, you fail to understand basic concepts here. If your claim is that vocabulary can be BETTER, or at least EQUALLY learned through vocabulary exercises that are not part of literature exercises (which you would have to do to use this as a point to justify removing Literature from required curriculum. "First of all just to even out the spelling and grammar, my opponent made a spelling mistake. " As fun as vote pandering is, it's not a debate point. But please go on. "Second of all, let me explain the difference. I agree with your point about how math can be applied to different situations but in literature, you are tested completely based on that book. For example, the case you mentioned about the kids, the teacher and kids do not care about the people's age they just want to learn how to solve problems. Literature on the other hand, focuses extensively on that book. " That's what's known as "special pleading". You see, you are correct that the student is tested "completely based on that book". But in my example of a math question, the student is just as much tested just on that problem. Tests are always on a specific question, and generally the hope is that the lessons will be applied broadly. "This is kind of turning into a debate between reading comprehension as oppose to fictional literature. The main argument one would probably use is that questions asked on that book can be applied to other books. " No. ". .. In your hypocritical words: unetablished point. .. " Actually, I had previously established that literature can teach about broader concepts, when I spoke about Ender's Game. If I were you, I would demand conduct points. "my teacher said we had a vocabulary test, we just learned new words. " You didn't learn what those words meant? What kind of vocabulary test was that, exactly? "Your first big paragraph in round 1 was not talking about literature teaching vocabulary. " While I mentioned vocabulary, it was a response to your point in the first round. To repeat, you are the one who has the burden of proof. All I have to do is refute your points in order to win this debate. Thus, I refuted your points. Had you not mentioned vocabulary, it wouldn't have come up. "You mentioned inferences and critical thinking ESTABLISHING that literature is not compromised of mainly vocabulary. " Which is irrelevant. My point was never that it WAS comprised of mainly vocabulary, but rather that your point about vocabulary was not established or valid. "That is a complete opinion based on no evidence. As I have pointed out literature does not focus strictly on vocabulary. If all that time without literature would be focused only on vocabulary there would be more time to learn vocabulary even IF literature was a more effective way to teach vocabulary. " Again, you have the burden of proof. If you make no valid points against the teaching of literature, then you have failed to establish your point and therefore lose this debate. You brought vocabulary into this debate as something you felt was a point in your favor. I addressed it. You, as the one with the burden, have to establish your points. I only have to show that you have not done so. "It's not on me to prove that literature studies are better" "You just asserted that literature studies are better, therefore it is on you to prove that. " No. I didn't. I was saying "here is a POSSIBLE answer, but it's not on me to prove this, it is on you to prove the inverse. " This is not hard; you should learn about BOP before attempting to debate. "I did not day because of better means. " Should I vote pander for spelling and grammar now? "Notice how I put it under the category of "time" not better "means" because as I have established literature does not focus strictly on vocabulary so that time can be used in order to focus strictly on vocabulary. " And, again, you have failed to prove that simple spending more time devoted to "focus strictly on vocabulary" would be better than spending time on Literature even for vocabulary alone. "This is probably around the fourth time it has been proven. Literature is not focused strictly in vocabulary so if literature was not taken as an obligatory class, that would be more time for vocabulary. " I'm not going to bother to count the number of times I've pointed out that your assertion that spending more time using a vocabulary book, in the absence of the context of literature, has yet to be proven. Perhaps an analogy is in order, since you clearly do not understand your burden of proof. Imagine that we're talking about fixing cars. And I'm advocating for studying the Clymer's guide, while you're claiming that that time is useless and that, if you didn't read the book, you'd have more time to work on the car. While that is true (more time could be spent if no time was spent reading the book), it's nonetheless also true that for someone who doesn't know much about cars, reading the book makes the time that is spend working on the car later FAR more efficient. "I basically stated a counter argument about academic benefit and explained that there is no new academic benefit in literature. " I neglected to mention this earlier: It is a tautology that if the subject is being studied in school, there is an academic benefit to studying it. "The academic benefit in literature is used in other classes therefore it is a waste of time. " Math is not used in English class. Therefore it is a waste of time. "Jobs: I have done so unless you prove otherwise. " As you have not addresed my points about jobs, I extend my arguments. You have NOT done so. Apparently, you ran out of space, so you did not answer the direct question I asked. In closing: Pro did not establish that Literature is not important. Nor did Pro establsih any unrefuted reason why Literature should not be taken as an obligatory class. Pro failed to understand basic concepts about the Burden Or Proof, and failed in basic reading comprehension (though I concede that my reading comprehension was not blemish-free, since I erred in restating the proposition). Having failed in the burden of proof, Pro has failed to prove his case.