English 150: Presentation Guidelines

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Presentation Guidelines
TA Sarah McLemore

[edit] English 150: Anglo-Irish Literature

Presentation Guidelines

Whatever your goals may be after graduating from UCSB, public speaking to your peers now will help prepare you for a career in graduate school or in the "real world." Presentations are a great way to hone your public speaking skills.
Since you get to pick the subject of your presentation, your presentation can be a GREAT means of kick-starting your research for the essay you’ll have to do for the course. In the past, some of the best papers I’ve received as a TA have come out of interesting research done for presentations.
Presentations are a way for me to see what you’re interested in academically. Seeing what you’re interested in or confused about helps me to make sections more helpful for you.
Since there is only one written assignment required for this course, presentations give me an opportunity to give you some additional written feedback on your work, and to give you a better idea of how you stand academically in the course.

Presentations are worth 25% of your participation grade.
Please keep your presentation to 3 minutes in length.
Your presentation should end with a provocative discussion question that we can attempt to answer in section and that is related to your presentation topic.
Although your presentation should address in some way the material we’re working on during the week of your presentation, you should feel free to address more than one work we’ve been looking at. You may also, of course, bring in your outside knowledge of literature, history (The Troubles! Colonization and decolonization!), pop music (U2! The Coors! Westlife!), films (The Commitments! Patriot Games! The Quiet Man!), and pop culture (Lucky Charms cereal! Irish Spring soap commercials!) etc. to link thematically the texts for this course.
If you miss section the day of your presentation, it will be virtually impossible to make up your presentation. Please plan accordingly.
I ENCOURAGE YOU TO WORK TOGETHER TO FORMULATE AN EXCITING GROUP PRESENTATION! Group work is encouraged, not discouraged.

You might use your presentation to examine a fascinating theme you’ve seen emerging. (Land? War? Women? The Ocean? Myths? Invention? etc.)
Presentations can focus on a literary technique employed by an author we’re reading. Wow your classmates with your sophisticated knowledge of terms like "flaneur" and "stream of consciousness."
Outside research is always appreciated and does not necessarily have to be directly related to the materials we’re discussing. If you’re wondering what the heck "poteen" is when we get to The Playboy of the Western World, you could present on the meaning of the word as well as the network of images that Synge alludes to when he mentions the frequent imbibing of poteen–best not to bring in any real poteen for us to sample, though.