Final Essay Presentation: 10% of final grade

Due

  • Monday, April 29; Wednesday, May 1; OR Monday, May 6

Requirements

Please see the final essay assignment page for a description of the final essay requirements.

Your presentation should be 5-7 minutes long. Please practice your presentation ahead of presenting it to the class and time yourself so that you have a good sense of how long your presentation will be. I will warn you at 7 minutes, then again at 7 minutes and 30 seconds, and then ask you to end your presentation at 8 minutes. Just as you should strive not to go over the time limit for your presentation, you should also strive not to fall under it. If, in practicing your presentation, you discover that it comes in under about 5 minutes, this is an indication that you will likely need to include more material.

Your presentation should include:

  1. Your 1-2 sentence central research question. Please see the final essay proposal assignment page for more details about your central research question.
  2. A discussion of how the historical source(s) you are writing about illuminates your selected literary text(s), or of how your selected literary text(s) illuminates your historical source(s). There are a wide variety of ways to accomplish this, but what I’m looking for here is a detailed, specific discussion of how the “historical context” about which you are writing informs our understanding of the literary text(s) you are writing about, or vice versa.
  3. The discussion described in # 2 should include an explication of one example – one point from your argument – that you think best provides an answer to your central research question. This example will likely include textual evidence from either (or both) your historical source(s) and your literary text(s). It may also include summaries of or quotes from secondary sources.
  4. At least one issue or question that you are still working on and that you would like some help with from the class.

Signing Up for your Presentation Date

Presentations will occur during our final 3 class periods: Monday, April 29, Wednesday, May 1, and Monday, May 6. I will bring a signup sheet to class on Wednesday, April 10, and you will have the chance to sign up for your preferred presentation slot that day at the beginning of class. The signup sheet will operate on a first-come, first-served basis; I will arrive in the classroom 5-10 minutes prior to the beginning of class and the signup sheet will be placed on a desk by the door. If you are absent from class that day, please send me a ranked list of your preferred presentation dates and I will do my best to accommodate your preferences based on which slots remain open.

After everyone has signed up, I will list the names of those presenting each day on our course calendar.

Slides

You are not required to create slides for your presentation. But if you would like to use slides, please email them to me the night before your presentation at the latest. Then, before class the next day, I will download and collate all of the presentations for that day on my computer. You will then use my computer to display and advance your slides during your presentation.

You can send your slides as .ppt/.pptx (PowerPoint) or .pdfs, or you can share Google slides with me.

Feedback and Discussion

5-6 people will present each class period. As you present, your classmates will jot down notes about your presentation and provide structured feedback via a short worksheet that I will provide. After the first 2-3 presentations each class period, we will pause for a 10-15-minute holistic discussion of the presentations we have just seen. The remaining 2-3 presenters will then present, and then we will discuss their presentations for the remaining 10-15 minutes of class. At the end of class, you will receive the worksheets your classmates filled out about your presentation.

I will submit your presentation grades to Canvas soon after the last day of presentations on Wednesday, May 6.