On the Teaching Presentation

What It Is

As you know, you may choose one of the following three options for the 15-20-minute teaching presentation. (1)"Looking Back": you must choose a literary or other work to be the subject of a demonstration of the ways in which that work "brings together" your experience of and learning in the major. (2) "Looking Ahead": you must present your research for the application project verbally in an explanation of the rhetorical strategies you plan to take in your application for the job or graduate program. (3) "Looking Out": you must choose a literary or other work to be the subject of a demonstration of the ways in which that work has changed your sense of the world today and your relation to it, or has caused you to gain a new perspective on a recent event or social/political/ethical issue.

What For

It is vitally important that you get a "final" opportunity to develop and practice your oral communication skills in an undergraduate setting, before being expected to be at least competent and at best eloquent in your post-graduate life. Thus, I am requiring everyone to do a major oral project--a teaching presentation--in this section of senior seminar. Feedback from your peers and instructor on your teaching presentation will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses in oral communication.

There are three options for this project so that there is a specific goal for your teaching presentation; each option is open-ended enough that there is a significant degree of latitude in your presentation's topic, structure, style, and means of achieving that option's goal.

• The "Looking Back" option asks you to "bring together" your experience of and learning in the major--to find some kind of coherence to the courses you've taken, the writing you've done, and the kinds of skills and knowledges you've garnered in/through the major. By choosing a particular literary or other work and describing/interpreting/evaluating/contextualizing/comparing/etc. it, you are to communicate what your English major has been and means to you. In short, your goal in this presentation is to teach your peers about both an individual work and the major as a whole. I am giving you this option so that you can gain practice in using a specific example to illuminate a larger structure/set of experiences, so that you can do work for this project that may help you prepare your research-based revision, and so that you consider and discuss in a sustained way the shape of the major as you see it.
• The "Looking Ahead" option asks you to connect what you've learned and are able to do in the major with your post-graduate plans--to show how to choose a particular field and develop strategies for gaining a position in it. Rather than simply describing the application materials you are developing for the application project, your job is to discuss the kinds of research and strategizing necessary to getting where you want to be after graduation. In short, your goal in this presentation is to teach your peers about the skills and knowledge you have developed in the major, the research necessary for preparing to enter a particular field, and the rhetorical strategies best suited to gaining a position in this field. I am giving you this option so that you can gain practice in giving a "how to" speech on a complex activity, so that you can do work for this project that may help you prepare your application project, and so that you consider and discuss in a sustained way how to strategize the job or graduate application process.
• The "Looking Out" option asks you to vividly convey the ways in which a literary or other work has changed your sense of the world today and your relation to it, or has caused you to gain a new perspective on a recent event or social/political/ethical issue. By considering a work of literature or other cultural form as itself transformative, rather than simply reflecting its creator's or era's attitudes and assumptions, you are to focus on how specifically it has transformed your perspective on the world or thinking about a particular event or issue. In short, your goal in this option is to teach your peers about how literature instructs as well as delights, as well as about your own developing understanding of the world today. I am giving you this option so that you can gain practice in vivid description of a transformative experience and analysis of that transformation, so that you can do work for this project that may help you prepare your audience/genre revision, and so that you consider and discuss in a sustained way the potential and actual effects of a work of literature on an individual's sense of identity, ethics, or politics.

How To

Check the main page for the date on which your teaching presentation is scheduled, and write back to me if you wish to change the date or option you had emailed me about. As you consider which option to choose and what approach to take to doing it, be thinking about the kinds of writing you plan to do in the course and ways to make the various assignments in the course fit together and work for you.

As you prepare your actual presentation, you need to consider everything from content to structure to style. Do you want to write your speech out completely and either read it aloud or memorize it? Do you want to write an outline of main points and improvise content and transitions based on practice presentations? Do you want to use notecards to summarize main points and examples? Do you want to use slides or PowerPoint to help organize and communicate your ideas?

ENGL 400: Senior Seminar, Spring 2002
Created: 2/5/02 11:56 am
Last modified: 2/7/02 4:37 pm