Paper 2 Presentations

Length: About 5 minutes. If you are working in a group, you can combine your times (3 presenters = 15 minutes, etc.)

As part of your Paper 2 assignment, you'll be presenting your original research to the class during one of two presentation days at the end of the semester. You may also choose to present your research on a topic unrelated to Paper 2, but most people will probably want to combine the presentation with their Paper 2 research.

Your purpose is to inform the class about some facet of the nineteenth-century American novel. If you've done the "texts in context" paper, for example, you may want to discuss what you've discovered about the periodical or author you focused on for the paper. If you've completed a web project, you may want to show that project on the screen and discuss it with the class. If you've worked with someone else on the project, you can present your research together.

Although this presentation will be based on your final project, you shouldn't simply read your paper to the class, since you won't have time to read the whole thing. Instead, you can present portions of your paper in your presentation or present its information in another way. You might, for example, bring in film or music clips, use PowerPoint or pictures, ask students questions, and otherwise make your presentation lively and informative for the class. You can also present your research in innovative ways (literary descendants of Joaquin Murieta? Pudd'nhead Wilson as detective fiction or as a precursor to shows like CSI? Film versions of a nineteenth-century text?)

The presentation will count 5% toward your Paper 2 grade: that is, you'll receive a grade for Paper 2 (20%) and a grade for the presentation (5%) to make up the 25% of your grade that Paper 2 represents.

Each time slot represents 5 minutes, so if two of you signed up in one time slot, you are agreeing to combine your 5 minutes.