Monday, November 11, 2013

A nervous moment in a Chaucer class, solved.

by KARL STEEL

We've all faced and perhaps all been the nervous presenter.

Today I hit upon what might be the perfect solution. I suggested to a nervous student that, for her presentation, we just sit up at the front of the room together and chat about it, talk-show style. I asked her what her paper was about, she told me, I asked her to elaborate, she did, and so on, in what became a conversation based on what was, unsurprisingly, a very nice paper with a clever argument.

It worked so beautifully that I just have to share it here. One for your bag of tricks.

2 comments:

Candace Barrington said...

I love this. Not only is it humane, but it is a very effective model of what a good paper should be: a conversation with a text and other resources. Thanks for sharing it. It will be in my bag!

Dr. Dawn Walts said...

I have always wanted to do something like this. You have inspired a new assignment for next semester. Thank you!