Oral Presentation (100 points)

Once during the semester, sign up to lead the class in a 15-minute discussion of one of the assigned essays from Keesey.

• Post on your weblog a richly-linked entry, that includes such useful details as key quotations, vocabulary terms, and a brief MLA-style Works Cited section. Link to pages you found in the internet that helped you understand the material. Link to blog entries in which your peers ask probing questions or supply interesting agenda items. (Please do not read word-for-word from your blog entry.)
  
• Just before you start speaking, hand me a one-page outline that presents your goals for the presentation. (I will write my feedback on this page and return it to you after class.)
  
• After your presentation, e-mail me a brief summary of what you feel the class gained from your presentation. Include specific details from the class discussion or other feedback that you gather during the class. (Three or four sentences with a bulleted list of supporting details will be sufficient. Please do not just e-mail me your PowerPoint slides or the script from which you were reading.)

• No more than three students may present on a given day. (This is to prevent 10 people from trying to present during the last week of classes.)
• The presentation schedule is fixed a week in advance. If, a week in advance, you confirm your commitment, but you're not actually ready to present when the time comes, you will not be permitted to reschedule. (If you can get someone to switch with you, that's fine. And, as always, I'm willing to be flexible in extenuating circumstances.)
• Only one student per assigned essay. (Claim your presentation dates by posting a comment on the course website, on the entry devoted to the essay you are choosing.)

1. Completeness (richly-linked blog entry, 5 minutes of presentation, 10 minutes of discussion)
   
2. Depth (adequately demonstrated comprehension of material; usefully explained challenging passages for the benefit of the class)
   
3. Engagement (presentation is not read word-for-word from a blog entry or script; presentation makes use of student contributions, citing them by name and giving appropriate credit; discussion questions move beyond fill-in-the-blank or "Here's what I think, do you agree?")
   
4. Reflection (quality of the outline that you hand to me before you begin speaking; depth and quality of the e-mail reflection statement that you write after your presentation is over).