Quick Reminders about Presentations

You should already have, via text, a copy of our presentation schedule. If you're not on it, be prepared to go Thursday, since that's where we have the only open slots. By the way, I'll have some treats for class; feel free to bring something if you like, on any of the presentation days :) We will of course be in A271, our "normal" classroom.

Some reminders, then:

• Look at the assignment to be sure you're meeting contract requirements. I've already shared the rubric, but here it is again (click to expand it):

• Practice your talk so that it fits within the 3-5 minute range. There are word count speech calculators online, but some of it depends on how fast you talk. Try not to talk fast, please! If you speak at an "average" rate, according to the calculator above, you can fit 500-600 words in the 3-5 minute mark.
• For the slideshow part of this, here's a quick example of what I'm expecting. That's it! Just the photo, filled out on the screen, so we can all look at it while you tell us about it. No text or talking points (feel free to have notes, cards, whatever helps you--we just don't want you to read to us). I would be okay with you having an additional slide or two if a close up of the image is relevant, or if an alternate take or two is relevant. 
• More help: the example photo I shared was of Baby Jessica, famous years ago for falling down and being rescued from a well. One of my online students is writing about the photo, and here's her rough draft of her talk. Probably, it will highlight for you many challenges of the project. Using the rubric above, you can see how this one does. I think it's a very strong draft so far, from someone who is an A writer in that class. It's very specific, organized and focused, for one. It cites sources as we would in a speech, for two. But I do think it's missing a key content feature: it doesn't explore much the composition of the photo, and ultimately why the photo, in combination with the story, make that image so famous. She's going to work on that (she got bogged down, as I'm sure many of you are, in the details of the related story). Also? This is probably too long, clocking in at 750 words or so. Concision is key. My advice is to stay true to the focus, and cut out the things that aren't relevant to the conversation.
• Finally, on the day of your talk you'll submit a copy of your photo to me, along with your Works Cited page. I don't need your notes or slideshow link. Just those two documents!

The ePortfolio Rubric

Here's the rubric I'll use for evaluating what you do. It's not a traditional rubric, since we have no points. But you can see a place I'll check off contract breaks if you earn them. A full A-rating requires A marks in all four categories.

Here's how this works, which should be no surprise if you've been around all term. The ePortfolio largely determines your grade for the course. You can see that it can doom you (if you earn the Unacceptable rating, there's no way to pass). But you can earn up to four contract breaks, too—that's what you see in the second column.

An A rating requires checks in all four categories. If you come up very slightly short with one of the categories, then I tend to look at how well you do with the last project and final—there's a chance to get into that A range, in other words.

If you know you've earned contract breaks already, then be especially cautious. Some of you may need to withdraw already. If you already have four breaks, then it's likely you're not in the best place with any of the projects, so the chance you'll submit a ePortfolio that doesn't earn any contract breaks is low. Also, please note that I haven't logged contract breaks for At-Home Activities yet, since we have more to do. If your percentage is way below 75%, you will probably have a contract break there!