Romantic Period
Guidelines for Leading-Off Student Discussion:
See
Syllabus
for Your Day
Leader's Job:
You will have a timed 15 minutes of class to begin a class on a topic
of your
choice. You may choose to present the material in whatever style you
feel will
be comfortable for you and effective for the class. Do not assume you
can pack
a complete class into 15 minutes; rather, assume that you are showing
to us all
how you would begin to help us all understand the work(s) of
your choice
from the syllabus. You should pick one particular topic. It may be
drawn from a
formal, close-reading of the text; from relevant biographical
information; from
relevant cultural contexts; from whatever you think will allow you to
illuminate some particular, significant aspect of either one or several
texts.
If there are multiple texts on your presentation day, you do not have
to
address them all, but you may do so if you wish to pursue a topic that
synthesizes several works.
Although you have less talking time than you might
wish, you
do have at your disposal all of the teaching tools you might wish to
use in a
full class, and are encouraged to use any handouts or study guides you
see fit.
By all means it will help to direct the class ahead of time, in the
class preceding
yours and/or via email (see below) concerning what questions to
consider about
a text, what sections of texts to focus on. If you have electronic
files or
sites you wish to use before/and or in your class be sure to get those
to me at
least one class session in advance of your teaching day. Any power
points, HTML
files, web pages, URLs, are easy for me to post to the server space
your
syllabus is in if you give me some lead time.
The most important advice is to not try to do too
much. Aim
to present one focused topic well.
You will be graded on teaching fundamentals, including: organization
and
preparation; clarity; command of material; ability to engage and
energize;
appropriateness of pitch to your graduate student audience. Your peers
are your
main audience; don't just direct the lesson at me. I do recognize that
for some
of you this may be the first teaching you've ever done, and will indeed
take
that into account.
Written Component
Every presenter will turn in a one-page summary of your presentation plan. Summarize the topic you chose to present and what you found interesting enough about it to tell others. Indicate if you have or have not had prior teaching or presentation experience.
Audience's Job:
Listen attentively, take notes, have questions to
ask.
To help me evaluate the teaching,
every class member except the presenter will send me via email as file
a brief, 1-page evaluation of the teaching, due before the next student
teaching happens. Be concrete, fair and civil, but critical in
your remarks.
For sending teaching instructions, materials:
morillo@unity.ncsu.edu
Return
to Syllabus