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Projects: Keyword Presentations

Unusual bits because it's the last project of the course

This is the last project in the course, which means it is under a number of timing constraints. The College of the Liberal Arts policy on final grades is that they must be entered two business after the last assessment in the course.

Therefore:

1. No extensions are available for any component of this project.
2. No written summary comments will be provided.

I am, however, happy to chat about your work after the dust of the semester has settled, so if you'd like to chat about my assessment of your work, please email me after final grades have been entered and we can schedule a time to meet in person or via Zoom (most likely early next semester).

Project Overview

In the Keyword Essays project, you wrote arguments about how these works change our understanding of certain keywords, particularly in relation to race and ethnicity. In this assignment, you will do the same, but in oral presentation form and in collaboration with 2–3 of your fellow class members who have also already written on the same keyword.

In one sense, you're attempting to accomplish the same goals you had in the keyword essays project.

But this time, you'll be doing that in conversation and collaboration with one or more teammates.

Your presentation should build upon the ideas you developed in your own short essays, however, I expect that the arguments you develop with your teammates will be greater than the sum of their parts. You will talk about your ideas, debate them, weigh the pros and cons of different approaches to the keyword, and ideally emerge with a new argument that synthesizes your various approaches into something new.

You will complete the following components of the project, according to the schedule on the course schedule webpage:

• A visual aid (most likely a set of slides), submitted by each team member on the day of class preceding the start of presentations.
• A 12-minute presentation, delivered during class.
• A 500-word mini-essay, submitted on the day of class following the end of presentations.

Below are details on each component and how it will be evaluated. Gateway criteria is noted between each section, and a complete rubric is linked at the bottom of this page.

Visual Aid

Visual aids can help keep your classmates engaged with your presentation, and can also allow you to more effectively communicate some points than an oral presentation alone.

A common visual aid is a slide presentation, created using something like PowerPoint, Canva, or Google Slides. A reasonable length of presentation would be at least two slides per group member (e.g. a three-person group’s presentation will be at least 6 slides long), but there are perfectly good reasons to do less or more than this.

To incentivize communication among group members and distribute accountability, each group member must submit a copy of the group's slides by the due date.

Gateway Criteria

• If slides are submitted as files, they must be submitted as PDFs.
• If slides are submitted as a web link, the link must be viewable by someone who is not logged in to a particular platform or service. (If in doubt, submit a PDF file)
• If the team uses something other than slides as a visual, your team must discuss this with me for approval no later than one week before the first presentation date.

Presentation

Each presentation will make an argument focused on the team's assigned keyword. It will support that argument with specific textual evidence and close reading analyses from one or more works studied in the course.

Exactly how you approach the keyword is a decision your team will make. However, at the very least the presentation should answer the question: How does your interpretation of one or more works studied in the course, and our conversations about them, influence how we should understand this keyword?

Each presentation will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Organization
2. Argument
3. Evidence
4. Connections to Other Work in the Course
5. Correctness

Groups should all be adequately prepared to present on the first day of presentations on the schedule. Each day’s presenters will be randomly determined during each class meeting.

After each presentation, there will be a question and answer period of 3–5 minutes.

Gateway Criteria

• The presentation must be on the designated keyword.
• The presentation must support its argument through one or more works studied in the course.
• The presentation must be at least ten minutes in length.

While you won't be penalized for an excessively long presentation, please be considerate of your classmates' time and rehearse so that you do not go over. If a presentation exceeds 15 minutes, I will stop it at the 15-minute mark and grade it only on what's been presented to that point.

Mini-Essay

Group projects pose challenges because the burden of work can sometimes end up unevenly distributed, or particularly good or particularly poor presentations can pull a grade up or down. Do your best to avoid this by communicating with your group and making a good faith effort to support each other.

Nonetheless, to give you more individual control over your grade, a portion of it will be determined by your individual work on a 500-word mini-essay related to the presentation.

In that essay, please do the following:

• Describe your group's process working on this project. What challenges did you face? What did you contribute to your group's success?
• Describe how your understanding of the keyword has evolved from the day your group first met to after you completed preparing your presentation.

Gateway Criteria

• The essay must be at least 500 words long.
• The essay must answer both of the above questions.

The assessment criteria is described in detail in this grading rubric.