Faculty of Arts,
Chulalongkorn University
Reading Response 3 and Presentation
Guidelines
Reading
Response 3
The last reading response (2
pp.; MLA
format) is a way for you to present your examination of a literary
text on the syllabus this semester and to bring together skills in
reading, critical thinking, and writing that we have worked on these past
few months. You will be working with four or five other students in close
reading and thinking about your chosen text, and will be presenting your
findings in a panel with them during the last week of class. See Suggested
Response and Presentation Topics below. Submit your reading response 3 in
class on Wednesday, November 29, 2017.
Suggested Response and
Presentation Topics
You and your panelists are inspectors who have chosen to inspect one work
(or more) on the syllabus. In reading and discussing that work with your
panel, decide which four or five aspects of it is worth "covering," that is,
which elements or features of the work especially characterize or define it?
What literary devices or techniques are prominent and yield revealing
insights upon close inspection? Each panel member will explore one of these
aspects in detail.
Alternatively, you and your panel members may be interested in a particular
technique or theme, in which case you will consider four or five works on
our syllabus that "cover" the technique or theme in fascinating ways. Each
member will focus on a different work and inspect that technique or theme in
the work. How, for example, is dialogue used in An Inspector Calls,
"Edward" and "Ballad of the Landlord"? What does the distinctive wordplay
create in Shakespeare's Sonnet 138?
Share your discoveries with me and with other panels in your final reading
response and presentation.
Below are final presentation topics.
Final presentations (about 20 minutes per panel, about 5 minutes per
speaker) take place on Monday, November 27 and Wednesday, November 29,
2017. Students form five panels of four members and one panel with five
members and decide to work on one of the topics below to present in class.
You may study and research any aspect of The Pillowman, Animal
Farm and/or any work(s) in the course packet that interests you
including those suggested by the topics given below. These are general
topics that need to be narrowed and refined into a specific argument.
Discuss among your panel members what aspect of the topic each person
wants to focus and speak on, share your research and close reading
discoveries, critique each other’s work in progress, and together design a
presentation that shows what your combined effort in close reading reveals
about a text or texts. Meet with your instructor to discuss your ideas in
more detail.
1. Switching or role reversals occur in several works we
have read such as in Beauty, “Segregationist,” The Pillowman, An
Inspector Calls, “Ozymandias” and Animal Farm.
2. Examine death in one or more works. You might
consider, for example, “My Number,” “The Lottery,” “Edward,” “Neighbors,”
The Pillowman and Animal Farm. How is death viewed by the
characters or speakers in the work(s)? How is death used by the
character(s) or by the author(s)? What can death do or not do?
3. Compare situations where a character is tested
between two or more works. How is the character tested? What challenges,
problems or obstacles does the character face? How does he or she perform
when tested? How does the way a person handles a trying situation reflects
on that person?
4. Examine sound in one or more works such as those by
Austen, Frost, the “Edward” poet, Hughes, Shakespeare and Yeats. In
addition to denotation and connotation, how do the authors convey or
reinforce meaning through sound? How does the aural quality of words
contribute to the telling of the story?
5. Study the ballad “Edward.” How is its form, an old
and repetitive structure, appropriate for a theme about guilt, crime, and
punishment? What is the effect of repetition, sentence structure, and
patterns of imagery in constructing and developing the characters’
motivation and state of mind?
6. Consider the various appearances of humor in one or
more works, for example, in Armitage’s “You’re Beautiful,” Twain’s “The
£1,000,000 Bank-Note,” Alexie’s “The Search Engine,” Jackson’s “The
Lottery,” or in An Inspector Calls. What is the function of a
joke? For the character(s)? For the story? What is laughed at or made fun
of and by whom?
7. What role do figures of authority play in An
Inspector Calls, The Pillowman, or Animal Farm?
8. Compare conversations in two or more works. What
happens during a verbal exchange, or even a supposed verbal exchange like
in “Ballad of the Landlord”? To what extent is there, in fact, exchange,
and of what?
9. How are An Inspector Calls and Animal Farm daring
works for their time? How do they use, extend, or break theatrical and
novelistic conventions?
10. Choose a poem and follow it like going on a journey.
Where and how does it begin? Trace the construction and development
of ideas through the twists and turns of line, meter, rhyme, imagery, word
choice, point of view, and tone. Where does the poem take you? What effect
does it create? Where and how does it end?
11. Discuss the theme of loss and discovery in any of
the works we have read. Consider, for example, what is lost in
“Ozymandias” and what is found. How does a self-conscious story like
“Happy Endings” show what one can lose or what one can find in reading it?
What does the speaker of Yeats’ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” lose and what
does he discover? How do the two graphic works convey loss and discovery?
12. Trace a significant word or pair of words throughout
a work. Try, for instance, the word dream in Animal Farm, poet
and/or Indian in “The Search Engine” or metal in “Segregationist.”
Section 1
Final Presentation Schedule
Monday, November 27, 2017
Panel 1: Title
9:30–9:50 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Panel 2: Title
9:50–10:10 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
5. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Respondent 5: Student Name
Panel 3: Title
10:10–10:30 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Panel 4: Title
8:00–8:25 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Panel 5: Title
8:30–8:55 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Panel 6: Title
9:00–9:25 a.m.
Presiding:
Speakers:
1. “Title,” Student Name
2. “Title,” Student Name
3. “Title,” Student Name
4. “Title,” Student Name
Respondent 1: Student Name
Respondent 2: Student Name
Respondent 3: Student Name
Respondent 4: Student Name
Revision
Rewrite
to fix problems regarding the idea, support, prose, organization,
mechanics, and style to make your paper more effective. Some things
to keep in mind as you proofread and edit your work:
-
Does my title show that I have a point to make?
-
Is my point sound, clear, and interesting?
-
Have I supported my point with compelling evidence?
-
Is the organization of my paper logical and appropriate
to the points I am making?
-
Is my language clear, consistent, and suited to the
subject matter?
-
Do each of my paragraphs have a clear point and
coherence?
- Have I incorporated quotations smoothly into my own prose?
- Do I provide balanced discussions of the quotes I cite?
-
Are my sentences varied, interesting, and effective?
-
Do my verbs agree with their subjects? Pronouns with
their nouns?
-
Is my paper free of spelling mistakes?
-
Have I cited my sources properly?
Final Presentation
Presentation of your panel's literary inspection is in week
16 of class: Monday, November 27 and Wednesday, November 29, 2017. Each
panel of four or five speakers will have fifteen to twenty minutes to
present their close study of texts we have read in this course. This will
be followed by a five-minute question and answer session. A moderator will
be presiding over the presentations and discussion session of each panel,
introducing the speakers, mediating the questions and responses, and
making sure things stay on schedule.
Practice reading your presentation aloud with visual aid if
you have any, and edit for speakability, clarity, and time.
Respondents give constructive comments on the panelists'
talk, indicating illuminating and effective points made, pointing out
problems to fix ex. content, logic, substantiation, organization,
clarification, delivery, and giving further commentary and opinions on the
issues being discussed. Respondents assigned to a panel are responsible
for giving feedback to any and all of the speakers on that panel but are
free to comment on papers of different panels as well.
You will be graded both for your performance in giving your talk and in
responding to your classmates' presentations, how you present your own
ideas and how you show that you know how to listen to, think about, and
discuss ideas that others propose.
A program of the final presentation schedule will be posted
on our detailed
schedule page once panel and response titles, speakers and
moderators are finalized. You are responsible for e-mailing me any
revisions to your presentation title by Friday, November 24, 2017.
Please inform me of any special equipment needs, otherwise
our in-class computer (which uses Microsoft Office 2007) and LCD projector
is provided.
Links
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and Analysis for the Study of English Literature |
Last updated November 23, 2017