I NEED SOME GENIUS IN ENGLISH

Oral Presentation Each student will deliver an oral presentation in class throughout the semester. Students are required to sign up to deliver one on an assigned reader or text. These presentations should last no more than 10 minutes and they will be delivered at the beginning of class.

1. Your oral presentation should give background about the author, the culture and time period, and a summary of the work.

2. You also need to present a research question about your reading at the end of the oral presentation. This question will be the starting point of the research paper you will write later in the semester.

3. Students must produce a written version of their presentation notes, with a bibliography. Think of this like a “mini-paper’; it should be 2-3 pages, word-processed, include a “Works Cited page” and have the same information from your presentation, just in essay form. Notecards, handwritten notes, bullet-point memos, or print-outs of PowerPoint slides don’t count.

4. The written version is due on the day of the presentation. Students must hand it in to me immediately after the presentation. If it is any later, it will affect the presentation grade, dropping it by one grade.

5. Any creative “accessories” (handouts, illustrations, musical excerpts, Power Point) are welcome.

6. I will grade on accuracy, content, creativity and presentation skills. • Accuracy—Is the information about the author, culture and time period correct?

Does the summary of the reading selection show that the presenter understands the material and gets the basic elements correct?

• Does the author biography’s included basic, need-to-know facts? Is there a description of the time period/culture that gives the audience a sense of the place and time that produced the text? Does the presenter understand that a summary is a “short version” of the original; does the presentation include the main characters, events, themes, images of the text? Is there too much detail (part of a good summary is knowing what to leave out). Does it miss important parts? Is it coherent (easy to follow)?

• Creativity—Does the presenter engage and entertain the audience while presenting? If there’s a PowerPoint, is it well done? Are there good graphics, main points clearly listed, and is it free of mistakes? Does the presenter do a skit, present as the author or main character, use a game to engage others? If there are handouts, are they useful, free of errors?

Presentation skills—Did the presenter take the trouble to learn to pronounce foreign or difficult terms correctly? (You can use the internet and the textbook to help you with that). Do they speak clearly and at a good pace, not too fast or slow? Are there too many pauses or “uhs” or “Hmmms”; an occasional one is fine, but too many can be distracting. Can the audience hear them? Do they seem comfortable with their material; can they make eye contact, do they seem at ease with the material (Practice helps!) I will not penalize you for speech impediments. A lisp is a lisp; you can’t help that. If you stutter, I will be patient, encouraging, and ask the class to do the same. If you do your best to pronounce a word or stumble, take a deep breath and try again. Take a deep breath, period. The only real penalties are for people who didn’t even try to learn to pronounce difficult names or foreign words and expect me to do it

for them, people who don’t speak up when people can’t hear them, people who sound like robots and don’t look up from their notes. People who are doing their best, regardless of language barriers or shyness, are going to be okay. Maybe not an “A” in presentation, but you can make up for that in content, accuracy and creativity