PRESENTATIONS MODULE

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN
Professor Kathryn Schild
Tulane University, Fall 2012

DESCRIPTION IN SYLLABUS
Course Objectives and Outcomes (excerpted)
This course will strengthen written and oral communication skills.
By the end of the semester, students will be able to:
clearly present their ideas and independent research (Assessed via presentations)

explain the structural and stylistic differences between effective written and oral communication (Assessed
via class discussion)

Presenting
To develop your spoken communication skills, we will work on how to effectively present throughout the
semester. You will have regular 1-2 minute presentations, then develop a longer presentation on some aspect of
your research project (below). We are fortunate to have a national Slavic conference (ASEEES) in New
Orleans in November, and will have some events on campus to take advantage of that opportunity. I encourage
you to develop your research project for a larger audience and to present it during an on campus, undergraduate
conference. We will discuss the presentation requirements as we get closer to those assignments, but you will
have to make the argument in office hours to use audio/visual material.

SEMESTER ACTIVITIES
Class
1A

1B

Activity

Rationale

Divide students into three groups for the semester.

Use these groups to create info-gap activities by

assigning different readings and presentation topics.

Prework: Groups research folklore topics (Baba Yaga,

place spirits, Devil vs. devils)

Students will pool their information through short,

informal presentations. This increases their sense of
responsibility and thus improves the likelihood that
they will come to class prepared.

Activities: Divide class into cross-group clusters of three

students. Clusters have ten minutes to review all three
topics.
Discuss how students researched topics and prepared to
present. What strategies were most useful? What did
the strongest presenters do? How would you prepare
differently?

This activity prioritizes efficient, audience-oriented

information transfer. Many students have been
primed to use a formal, long-winded style in class
presentations. Starting with informal presentations
and immediate feedback redirects students towards
stronger presentation strategies.

Warn students the next assignment will include a quiz.

3A

Prework: All groups read a secondary source about

saints lives (vitae); each has a primary text to analyze.

The short-answer post pushes students to hone the

central message of their presentation before class.

Presentations Module Instructional Plan

Class

The Un/Holy in Russian Literature

Activity

Rationale

Post a tweet-length answer (140 characters) to an

analysis question on the class website.
Activities: Clusters have fifteen minutes to present and
compare the primary texts.
Give a short quiz about saints lives that asks for
examples of common tropes from the primary texts.
Discuss whether the presentations prepared students for
the quiz. If not, what would you do differently next
time? How hard was it to synthesize your ideas down to
a tweet? Why?
Activities: Give groups different academic articles.
Allow students five minutes to review their articles, then
collect the article copies.
Give 1-2 minutes to pre-write, then have students
present the articles in clusters.

4A

Adding the quiz builds accountability and motivates

students. These quizzes are worth very few points,
to avoid penalizing uneven clusters.
Discussing strategies throughout this module gives
students a low-key way to develop presenting and
research skills. Students report techniques that
worked for them, which develops their sense of
ownership over the activity. Studies suggest that
low-performing students are more likely to follow
classmates recommendations for improving skills
than direct instruction.
This session supports the research module in this
class. It helps students develop strategies for
presenting information when they are not experts
and prepares them for the next activity, when their
article presentations will have more consequences.

Review the articles as a class, first allowing only those

students who have not seen the article to describe it.
Discuss reading strategies for academic articles, what to
read first when time is limited, presenting others
arguments.
Lecture: Describe what to do if you dont understand an
academic article: how to find brief descriptions of it in
other articles that cite it, what to look up, whom to ask
for help.

4B

Prework: All groups read Gogol stories; each group

reads a separate academic article about Gogol.

The summary activity implements strategies from

the previous discussion.

Activities: Clusters have fifteen minutes to present the

articles arguments. Give students a short form to fill
out about the articles.

The discussion focuses on presentation skills for

complex information. Students first practice the
skill, then discuss strategies for improvement, then
isolate the skill for targeted practice.

Give a short quiz that asks students to apply the main

theory from each article to the stories. Students may use
their completed forms for the quiz.
Discuss written vs. oral sentence structures. How did
you simplify the argument when presenting? Why is
reading paragraphs from the article less effective than
summarizing?
Show a PowerPoint with a key sentence or paragraph
from each article. Ask students to summarize the
excerpt for an oral presentation, using the opening,
Ivanits argues that Review answers as a class.

5A

Prework: All groups read a primary text; each group

conducts independent research on a topic related to the
primary text. Students keep a written log of their
search.

Prof. Kathryn Schild

This activity supports the research module in this

class. It gives students the opportunity to practice
strategies from the 4B activities and prepares them
to present independent research topics for their
Tulane, Fall 2012

Presentations Module Instructional Plan

Class

The Un/Holy in Russian Literature

Activity

Rationale

Activities: Clusters have fifteen minutes to present their

findings.

5B

individual presentations.

Discuss whether students presented their research path

(First I then I found) or results (Most articles
one scholar). Discuss how to reorganize their
presentations around what the audience needs to know.

Student papers and presentations frequently follow

the students path of discovery instead of organizing
information to aid the audience. Discussing this
error and practicing corrections in a low-stakes
activity prepares students to develop audience-based
structures for high-stakes assignments.

Activity: Analyze the days close reading discussion.

Who is the audience for this type of analysis? Discuss
ideal vs. actual audiences, then segue into audience
analysis for the presentations.

Audience analysis is an essential component for

presentation planning outside the classroom, so
formalizing this step prepares students for broader
communication situations.

Lecture: Outline individual presentation assignment: 5minute formal presentations with a brief questionanswer session after. Review deadlines.

Argument outlines prepare students with what they

want to say, not just what they want to talk about.

Activity: Develop topic and argument outlines on the

board based on days close reading. Discuss why
argument outlines are more effective than topic outlines.
Prework: Develop at least three possible presentation
topics for the individual presentation. For each, write 12 sentences on a possible thesis and argument.

6A

Activities: Break students into pairs to share topics and

develop ideas.

This series of activities encourages students to

develop their ideas early and get feedback before
creating a presentation. By building their
presentations outward from a central idea, students
are more likely to give presentations with strong
theses and clear organization.

Discuss what makes a strong thesis and how to narrow

topics to a feasible size.
If time: write a sample broad thesis on the board. Give
students three minutes to write possible narrow theses,
then share as a class. Discuss how to narrow the focus.
Prework: Post a paragraph summary of your research
topic on the class website.

6B

Activities: Break students into workgroups (4 students),

give them 30 minutes to analyze The Doubles structure
and prepare a 1-minute team presentation about it. Each
student must speak during the presentation.
Discuss presentation strategies. How much could you
cover in a minute? What speaking behaviors were most
effective?

7A

The short time limit forces students to prioritize

information, while the team aspect encourages
playful solutions to the challenge. Students learn
how much they can cover in one minute, which
helps them budget for the individual presentations.
The team presentation also helps psychologically
prepare them by giving every student time speaking
to the entire class.

Prework: Post feedback (ways to narrow the topic,

passages to analyze, connections to other works, etc.) to
at least four classmates posts on the class website.
Once students have incorporated each others
feedback and developed their ideas, they are ready
for instructor feedback. Grade the outline for
completion only, but provide detailed advice on the
ideas and structure so that students can refine their
presentations.

Prework: Write an outline for your presentation.

8A

Prof. Kathryn Schild

Tulane, Fall 2012

Presentations Module Instructional Plan

Class

The Un/Holy in Russian Literature

Activity

Rationale

Prework: Come to class ready to give your individual

presentation. (The syllabus has three presentation days
blocked out, but tell students they all need to be
prepared for the first day.)

9A

Setting an earlier deadline for the presentations

gives students time to practice and revise. The
group feedback gives everyone a turn at giving
advice, which makes them more likely to follow
their own best practices.

Activities: Allow students to vote whether to start

graded presentations today or practice in groups. The
Writing an action plan helps students process their
vote usually skews heavily towards practice. If not, start peers feedback and develop concrete steps, rather
the presentations instead of the following activities.
than aiming for overall improvement. The final
process discussion reinforces these steps.
Break the class into workgroups (5-6 students) and have
students deliver their presentation to the group, then get
feedback. Write the following topics on the board for
the feedback sessions:
Summarize the argument. Could you follow it
easily?
Did the presentation include specific examples?
What did you like about the presentation?
Did anything interfere with following and
enjoying the presentation?
Give students 2-3 minutes to write a plan for improving
their presentations.
Discuss class best practices, then how students prepared
for the presentation and what they want to try for the
actual presentations.
Prework: Post a tweet-length version of your
presentations thesis on the class website.

9B

The post gives students a chance to refine their

argument based on peer feedback. The tight size
limit forces them to prioritize information.

Sign up for a presentation slot (arranged across two

class sessions, with time on the second day for a
reflection activity).
Prework: Come to class ready to give your individual
presentation.

10B,
11A

12B

Activities: Student presentations.

Give students a short self-evaluation form that covers
content, organization, and delivery. If time, break into
pairs or small groups to discuss ways to work on areas
for improvement.
Activity: In lieu of class, attend a session (professional
or undergraduate) of an academic conference. Post a 23 sentence summary of the speakers argument.
Students presenting at the undergraduate conference are
exempt from this assignment.

Prof. Kathryn Schild

The self-evaluations encourage reflection and create

a tighter feedback loop. They also shift the tone of
the grading feedback for most students: instead of
identifying areas for improvement, the instructor
can give positive feedback about students selfawareness of these areas.

Students apply their new drafting and presenting

skills to analyzing anothers presentation. This
cycles through the skills one more time, increasing
the likelihood that they will internalize the
behaviors.

Tulane, Fall 2012