Breakout Discussion Topics

Each lecture in the course has a corresponding file in this directory with two breakout debate topics. In class, students split into small groups, spend ~15 minutes on one (or both) of the topics, then report back to the full group.

Topics are designed to be:

• Debatable — framed as a motion or contested claim, not a closed-book question.
• Grounded in current events — each includes a short “prep reads” list of recent news, reports, or primary sources students can skim before/during the breakout.
• Refreshable — flagged so a future skill can identify and update stale links.

File format

Each file starts with the H1 (no YAML frontmatter — GitHub renders that as an ugly table). Metadata lives in a bottom-of-file HTML comment, which is invisible on both GitHub and the rendered Jekyll site:

# Breakout Discussions — Lecture N: <Topic>

**Format.** ...instructor framing...

---

## Breakout A: <Sub-topic>
<!-- breakout id="A" status="current" refreshed="YYYY-MM-DD" -->

**Motion.** *"<contested claim>"*

<!-- current-events:start topic="<slug>" -->
**Prep reads (5–10 min).**
- [Title](https://url) — Publisher, Month YYYY
- [Title](https://url) — Publisher, Month YYYY
<!-- current-events:end -->

**Discussion prompts.**
- ...

**Bring back.** <one-line report-back ask>

---

## Breakout B: <Sub-topic>
...

<!--
breakout-metadata:
  lecture: <int>                # lecture number, matches schedule
  class: "<topic title>"        # class topic from schedule
  book_chapter: "<ref>"         # book chapter or section (e.g. "1", "2.2.1")
  last_refreshed: YYYY-MM-DD    # date the current-events links were last verified
-->

Markers a refresh skill should recognize

• last_refreshed: inside the bottom <!-- breakout-metadata: ... --> comment — the last time any current-events block in the file was verified. If older than N weeks, the file is a candidate for refresh.
• <!-- current-events:start topic="..." --> / <!-- current-events:end --> — wraps the block of time-sensitive links. Everything between these markers is fair game to rewrite. The topic slug hints at what to search for.
• <!-- breakout id="A" status="stub|current" refreshed="YYYY-MM-DD" --> — per-breakout status. status="stub" means the breakout was seeded from the book chapter without live current-event lookup and should be refreshed before the lecture is taught. status="current" means links were verified on refreshed.

Content outside these markers (motion, discussion prompts, bring-back) is treated as evergreen — the refresh skill should not rewrite it unless the whole breakout is marked status="stub".

Adding or refreshing topics

The intended workflow (once the refresh-breakouts skill exists):

1. Instructor runs /refresh-breakouts <lecture-number> a few days before class.
2. Skill reads the corresponding book chapter (in the sibling censorship-book/ repo) to find current-event references and identify the topic focus.
3. Skill runs web searches for recent news on those topics.
4. Skill rewrites the current-events:start/end block with fresh links, updates last_refreshed, and flips status="stub" to status="current" where applicable.
5. Instructor reviews the diff.