Review the assignment for paper 1. Choose a secondary work that will form the basis for your paper. If you are not sure, please meet with or send me an email to discuss. In a 5-10
minute presentation, summarize what you will write in your paper.
- Summarize the main thesis of your article of your
article or book.
- Choose an illustrative passage and explain it to the class
- Suggest ways that the argument enters into a larger debate or addresses an important issue or problem
- Evaluate how well the argument does this.
Some Suggestions:
- A 5 minute presentation, if written out and read, is equivalent to about 500-750 words--that is the length of a newspaper opinion piece.
- Instead of reading, try to work from an outline and speak to your audience.
- Practice and revise your presentation ahead of time--you wouldn't turn in the first draft of a paper, now would you?
- I will keep you to a strict time limit for your presentations.
- It helps your audience if you summarize your main point and your evidence more than once through the talk.
- I recommend that you do not use power point or other visual presentation tools (haiku, prezzi, open office etc). Rather use the time you would have spent making it pretty to revise and clarify your argument. Such software is quire useful, but introduces all sort of technical problems that detract from the point of this assignment which is to get you to explain to an audience what you think about a particular argument and evidenceThey are also a great way to procrastinate (believe me I speak from experience). If you are certain you want to use such tools, be sure to practice ahead of time and come early to class to get it set up so that it all works.
After the presentation you will meet with me to get your grade and evaluation. We will then discuss how to turn the presentation into your first paper. I will have a sign-up sheet in class.