Remember that your exam period time is posted on the syllabus calendar and in Monday’s blog post. For students in section twenty, that is 8 a.m. on Saturday, December 7; for students in section nineteen, that’s 8 a.m. on Wednesday, December 11.
Keep all of your required blog posts for the semester (your final essay and annotated bibliography, analysis, and literacy narrative) published (visible on your blog) until final grades have been posted. Also make sure that you have corrected errors of grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and style, and deleted all placeholders/sample posts. Since blog activity is a component of your course assignments grade, I will review your blogs before I finalize those grades.
If you haven’t done so already, submit course evaluations for ENG 1103 and your other classes.
Today or tomorrow your course assignment grade will be updated to its preliminary final average; exemplary blog activity, class participation, and attendance may raise it. If you wish to check that preliminary grade, please do so before 5 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday, December 5. After that, the Blackboard course site for English 1103, sections nineteen and twenty, will no longer be available to students. Final grades for the course will be posted in eServices on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 11 or on Thursday, December 12.
If you have any questions regarding your individual presentation grade or your final grade for the course, please email me the second week of January. I will be out of the office from the afternoon of December 11 until the morning of January 6.
Next Up
During the exam period, you will deliver your individual presentations and serve as the audience/intern selection committee for your classmates. See your assignment handout and Monday’s blog post for details.
This final Scrabble post of the semester features the names of authors and characters that are playable words. Learning these will not only increase your word power (and up your game), it will also broaden your knowledge of literature. If you haven’t read some of classics listed here, I encourage you to check them out.
eyre: a long journey (the last name of of the title character in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, 1847)
dickens: a devil (Charles Dickens, 1812-1870)
fagin: a person, usually an adult, who instructs others, usually children, in crime (from a character of that type in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, 1838)
holden: the past participle of hold (Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, 1951)
huckleberry: a berry like a blueberry (the first name of the title character in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Hucklebery Finn, 1884)
oedipal: describing libidinal feelings of a child toward the parent of the opposite sex (from the title character in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, c. 429 B.C.)
quixote: a quixotic, or extremely idealistic person; also quixotry, a quixotic action or thought (the title character in Michael de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Part I: 1605, Part II: 1615)
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips, including this one.
This morning in class, after we discuss the article “The Onion Buys Infowars . . . ,” you will have time to plan and prepare the individual presentation that you will deliver during the exam period: 8 a.m., December 7, section 20, and 8 a.m., December 11, section 19. I will distribute copies of the assignment in class. An additional copy is posted on Blackboard and the directions are also included below.
As a finalist for a much-sought-after internship in your field, you are required to deliver a concise and engaging presentation that highlights your achievements in English 1103 and demonstrates your ability to effectively assume the responsibilities that the internship requires of you. Among the aspects of the course that you should address are one or more of your major writing assignments and the development of your critical thinking and collaboration skills. You are encouraged but not required to address additional aspects of the course.
Directions for Planning
Plan a brief presentation of approximately three minutes that highlights your achievements in English 1103 and demonstrates your ability to effectively assume the responsibilities that the internship in your field requires of you.
Address one or more of your major writing assignments and the development of your critical thinking and collaboration skills. You are encouraged but not required to address additional aspects of the course.
Include the following in your presentation:
an opening in which you state your first and last names and your major,
concrete details in your blog that illustrate the development of your writing, your critical thinking, and your collaboration skills
a close examination of one pertinent passage in your blog, and
a conclusion that provides closure and invites questions from the interview committee.
Directions for Rehearsing
In preparation for rehearsing, write your notes on index cards. If your notes are in complete sentences, rewrite them to include only words and short phrases for your key points. If your notes are too detailed, you will risk relying heavily on them and making minimal eye contact with the interview committee. Make as much eye contact as possible and be sure to make eye contact with committee members throughout the room rather than fixing your eyes on one or two people.
Because you are required to project your blog on the classroom screen, you should familiarize yourself with the presentation station. Demonstrating that you are not adept at using the technology required for your presentation may jeopardize your chances for obtaining the internship. If you have not used the presentation station, I encourage you to devote part of today’s class period to familiarizing yourself with its setup.
Practice good posture. As you deliver your presentation, your ears should be directly above your shoulders. If you tend to shift your weight from one foot to the other—a distracting habit that’s sometimes called rocking the boat—stand with your feet perpendicular to each other. If you do, you will not be able to shift your weight from one foot to the other.
Avoid filler words, such as um, like, and you know. If you tend to use filler words, practice pausing at the points where you are likely to use fillers.
Rehearse with a classmate. Take turns delivering your presentations and offering feedback. Offer both suggestions for improvement and words of encouragement.
Grade Criteria
An A final presentation includes all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and demonstrates the presenter’s poise and ability to avoid filler words.
A B final presentation includes all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing but may be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.
A C final presentation includes most but not all elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.
A D final presentation includes only some of the elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.
An F final presentation includes few if any elements outlined in the directions for planning and rehearsing and may also be marred by the presenter’s lack of poise and/or lack of ability to avoid filler words.
. . . Satire’s Last Laugh?
In lesson two of the Check, Please! course, Mike Caulfield introduces the concept of fauxtire: fake news presented in the guise of satire. A timely twist on that concept occurred two weeks ago, when The Onion—not a source of fauxtire but a well-regarded satirical site—purchased* at auction Alex Jones’s bankrupt Infowars, a website that published disinformation, including the false claim that the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which killed twenty children and six adults, was a hoax devised to bring about anti-gun legislation.
*The purchase has been stayed in bankruptcy court pending a review of the bidding process.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips.
Jane Lucas 