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Context Presentation and Discussion

ENGL 1102 K5/F1/N9

Context Presentation and Class Discussion(17.5%/175points)

Adapted from similar assignments by Dr. Amy King and Dr. Anna Ioanes

Presentation Dates

February 7: Between the World and Me (parts II and III)

February 16: Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho(vol. I)

February 23: Letters from an American Farmer(I and III)

February 28: Letters from an American Farmer(IX and XII)

March 14: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(vol. I / chs. 1–21)

March 16: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(vol. II / chs. 22–41)

Slide Show Deadlines

Slide show files are due on T-square by midnight of the day the presentation is due. **ALL members of the group must submit the slide show file on T-square.

Task

This is the first part of a two-part project that requires you to do research on one (or part of one) of the course readings, synthesize that research into an audio-visual presentation for the class, and then lead class discussion based on your presentation. The second part of the project, to be assigned later after all the presentations have been given, requires you to write an annotated bibliography of the research you contributed to the presentation and write an abstract for an argument based on that research.

In groups of three or four, you will producea five-minute slide show presentation with recorded voice-over that puts one of the coursereadings in context (biographical, historical, cultural, or any combination of the three), drawing on the collective research of the group members.Groups will conclude their presentations with a set of discussion questions and proceed to lead class discussion for at leastthirty (30)minutes.

Groups need to meet with me well in advance of the presentation to discuss their research, distribution of labor, presentation strategies, and anticipated challenges.

In short, there are three components of this assignment:

  1. substantive research in the form of three sources relevant to the context of selected reading
  2. afive-minuteslide presentation with recorded voice-over
  3. aset of three or four questions that will stimulate class discussion
  4. leadership of class discussion for at least thirty (30) minutes

Submission

There are two submission elements for this part of the reading-and-context project:

  1. The audio-visual presentation and leading of a 30-minute discussion are due in class on the dates listed above, according to the reading your group selects for research.Submit the slide show for class viewing by uploading it to a service such as YouTube or Vimeo. All team members should be present, but one team member will press “play” to start the presentation in class.
  1. All group membersmust submit the audio-visual file on T-square by midnight of the day they give the presentation in class.

Research Requirements

In addition to reading the assigned text for that day, each group member will research a total of three sources, as follows:

  • all group members will locate and read one assigned scholarly source in common (assigned sources are listed at the end of this assignment sheet)
  • each group member will research two additional primary or scholarly secondary sources as agreed-upon by the group.

This research should explore some aspect of the way letters are used or represented in the reading by putting them in context. These contexts may include:

  • literaryor cultural tradition
  • contemporary art and literature
  • historical events
  • biographical information
  • the facts of writing and publication, or
  • information about specific references in the letter(s)/texts.

Do not fool yourself: This is a lot of reading. Groups should meet early, plan ahead to choose a context to focus on, distribute research responsibilities, and schedule a meeting with me as soon as possible.

Presentation Planning and Requirements

Groups should plan to meet with me at least a week in advance of the presentation. I understand that schedules may require that some group members meet with me independently of the rest of the group. This meeting does not count toward the office-hour appointment for extra credit.

Using the group’s collective research, you will develop an argument (or primary claim) abouthow your chosen contextual frame makes sense of the letters in the reading. (E.g., In order to really understand why Coates decides to publish a letter to his son, you have to understand the eighteenth-century notion that letters were “talking upon paper.”) Your presentation should synthesize and quote key information and ideas from your research and attempt positions in relation to claims from the sources.

You will present your contextual argument in the form of a five-minute slide show with recorded voice-over. You may use whichever slide-show software you prefer, as long as it has the capability of audio voice-over. Again, you will play the slide show in class from YouTube or Vimeo (or similar).

Your audio-visual presentation should:

  • begin with a title slide with a presentation title and group members’ names
  • feature a clear voice-over, incorporating every group member’s voice
  • balance formal and conversational registers as appropriate for an audience of your intellectual peers
  • make a clear and explicit claim about the significance of the context to understanding some aspect of the letters or letter writing in the reading
  • move through astrategic number of slides, images, and quotations/facts for the audience to digest
  • includeparenthetical citations for every idea, fact, or claim derived from the group’s research
  • conclude with a slide featuring your three or four discussion questions
  • append a Works Cited slide at the end, in MLA format

Class Discussion Requirements

The second-to-last slide in your slide presentation should frame three to four thoughtful questions to prompt class discussion for at least thirty (30) minutes. These questions can follow up on any aspect of the argument you develop in your presentation. Now that you have put the letters of the text in context, you might flip the exercise on its head: how does the reading make a claim about some issue of special relevance in the context you’ve presented? You might put your text in conversation (compare/contrast) with other readings we have done in class. You might ask a question about some aspect of the text the group still can’t make sense of. Consider preparing related follow-up questions to raiseonce the class begins discussing. You might also bring up interesting/relevant research that did not make it into the audio-visual presentation.

Grading

The presentation and class discussion is worth 175 points, which is 17.5% of your final grade. You will be evaluated on:

  • thestrength, clarity and explicitness of your claim about the reading, its letters, and their context
  • thefocus and coherence of the research
  • the synthesis and analysis of the research as evidence in support of the group’s claim
  • how well the visual argument and oral delivery coordinate with and complement one another
  • the insightfulness and provocation of the discussion questions
  • group coherence and distribution of labor in the audio-visual presentation and during class discussion (for example, the introduction of team members, the use of transitions and active member participation in leading discussion)
  • strength and substance of your individual contribution to the group success
  • group’s energy and responsiveness to evolution of class discussion
  • your ability to keep within the 5-minute time limit (allowing 30 seconds over or under without penalty)
  • proficiency in MLA citation conventions (parenthetical references and bibliographical format)

Assigned Sources for Presentation Resource

Note that I have modeled for you proper MLA style for listing book chapters and journal articles in a Works Cited list.

Between the World and Me (parts II and III)

Gates, Henry Louis. Introduction. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. xix–xxviii. Print.

Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho(vol. I)

Rezek, Joseph. “The Print Atlantic: Phyllis Wheatley, Ignatius Sancho, and the Cultural Significance of the Book.” In Early African American Print Culture.Ed. Jordan Stein and Lara Langer Cohen. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. 19–39. Print.

Letters from an American Farmer(I and III)

Cook, Elizabeth Heckendorn. “The End of Epistolarity: Letters from an American Farmer.” Ch. 5 in Epistolary Bodies: Gender and Genre in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of Letters. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. 140–72. Print.

Letters from an American Farmer(IX and XII)

Larkin, Edward. “What Is a Loyalist?” Common-place8:1 (October 2007). Web.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(vol. I / chs. 1–21)

Hartman, Saidiya. “Seduction and the Ruses of Power.” Ch. 3 in Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. 79–112.(Esp. 102–12)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(vol. II / chs. 22–41)

Hewitt, Elizabeth.“Jacobs’s Letters from Nowhere.” Ch. 4 in Correspondence and American Literature, 1770–1865. 111–42.