Presentation Assignment and Guidelines

Goal of the Presentation

Groups should shape their presentations around a primary goal: explaining how a particular person, event, or phenomenon was significant to the Harlem Renaissance.  To accomplish this goal, groups will need to research primary sources—literature, songs, newspaper accounts, speeches or reviews written during the period—as well as secondary sources such as history texts and scholarly books or articles.  While I do not expect you to read an extensive number of sources, you will need to examine at least two or three. Presentations should include a bibliography of sources; moreover, groups must incorporate visual aids into their presentations.  

While fifteen minutes may seem like a great deal of time, it isn’t.  Group members will have sufficient time to offer a brief biography of key figures or a short history of an event or phenomenon; discuss excerpts from an author’s writing, quote reviews, or analyze songs; and make an argument about how the person, event, or phenomenon played a key role in the Harlem Renaissance.

Group members must meet with me as they develop their presentations.  These meetings give us the opportunity to discuss ideas-in-progress and iron out problems with research.  I can also share resources with you and offer advice on visual aids.

Guidelines
 

• All members of the group must take an equal role in the presentation.  This means that each group member must be actively involved in researching and developing the presentation.  Each group member must also speak for roughly the same amount of time during the presentation.  

• Coordinate the presentation with your partners. Each group member should know what the others will cover and when they will cover it.

• Remember your audience. What do they already know about the topic(s) you’re addressing? What terms might they be unfamiliar with? Which points are they likely to understand immediately? Which will you have to explain in more depth? What issues or questions will interest them? 

• Make the presentation easy to follow. Use an organizational format suited for oral presentations: chronological ordering, cause/effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, or most significant to least significant argument. Use transition phrases to signal the shift from one point to the next. 

• Focus the information you gather from research.  While research will provide essential material for the presentation, groups will not have time to present all their research.  Instead, groups should focus on the question of how their event, person, or phenomenon impacted the Harlem Renaissance.  All details presented should support the groups’ analysis of the person’s, event’s or phenomenon’s significance.  

• Cite sources clearly. When you summarize, paraphrase, or quote sources, use signal phrases such as "Huggins persuasively argues" or "as Levering Lewis brilliantly notes."
  

• Provide visual aids and incorporate them effectively. Excerpts from songs and literature, Power Point slides, an outline of your presentation, and quotes from applicable sources will help your audience to follow your points.  No matter what type of visual aids you use, they should be readable and have a clear connection to the presentation.  If you use a presentation outline, be sure that the outline matches your points.  If you distribute a handout with key points and quotations, let the audience know when to look at the handout.  Remember that visual aids help the audience to follow your points; they do not represent a transcript of your remarks.  You want the audience to listen to you, not read the visual aid and ignore the presenters. 

• Do your homework and have a backup plan if you use technology. Groups can choose the room in which they want to present, but they should familiarize themselves with the equipment before the presentation.  Our seminar room has a data projector and a laptop connected to the class network, while the lab has machines with headphones for each student.  Both rooms have video projection.  If groups use PowerPoint, they should save presentation files in at least two formats (floppy, uploaded to Dante) and bring a transparency or prepare to write on the board if the equipment fails.  Most of the time, groups won’t need to use the backup plan, but having one decreases stress.

• Speak slowly and loudly. Your audience only has one chance to hear your presentation.  

• Speak from notes.  Although you may worry that nervousness will erase your memory, do not write out everything you plan to say on paper or on your visual aids. Speakers who do so tend to look only at their Power Point slides or papers instead of their audience.  

• Avoid lacing your speech with "um," "uh," "like," and "you know." Do not perform the shifty-footed, hand-wringing dance of the terrified orator. 

• Conclude effectively. End with a statement that leaves the audience with a final impression of your argument, thank the audience for their attention, or introduce questions for discussion. Do not say "that’s all" or "we’re done." These statements diminish everything you have said. 

• Ask and answer questions. Formulate discussion questions that allow the class to expand upon points introduced in the presentation.  Before posing your own questions, remember to take questions from the audience.  To prepare for Q & A, write a list of questions your audience will likely ask. Better yet, practice in front of friends and have them ask you questions.

• Have fun.  You may present your arguments in any manner you choose.  Consider quizzing the audience, having a short discussion,  holding a debate with your partners, or using another creative approach.