English 793B Presentations

It is always convenient to divide the labours by page count (different sections of the text assigned to different group members), but I have no requirements in this area at all. You can divide by theme. You can divide according to external structural concerns (background, argument, implications, applications, etc.). One person can do all the talking; you can alternate. It's completely open. What I care about is solely the state the class is in when you're finished: we should all have a clearer, more focused sense of what the book does, how its positions relate to other theoretical perspectives, and what it should mean to us as we go about our daily engagements with discourse.

You should contextualize the book, not necessarily to Booth's historical milieu, but to your own understanding of text/discourse/literary/rhetorical theory machinery--bring in Habermas, Burke, Lyotard, Foucauld, Aristotle, whomever--framing our understanding of this specific book in the wider arena of engaging texts. Increasingly, as we move through the course, part of this framing should be Booth's own texts.

You--and your audience--will have all read Rhetoric of fiction from the outset, and other texts as we move along; make use of this common ground.

You should also draw on the essays in Antczak, on the other reserve readings, the linked web-materials, and any other relevant materials you uncover.

This assignment will also have a life on the web, to increase the available resources for people teaching, learning, and/or researching Booth, so (however you structure your presentation) it should include an html file which summarizes the key elements of the book, and responds to them in some way (some evaluative way, since this is Booth we're dealing with)--due one week after your presentation. Dave Hoff and Brandi Zebrak have graciously agreed to coordinate this effort, so please submit copies to them as well as to me.

Assignments
Date	Groups	Texts
6 June	Olga Gladkova Marc Alcock Maheen Hasan Karin Ikavalko Julie-Ann Stodolny	*Modern dogma and the rhetoric of assent*

20 June	Sara Humphreys Heather Calder Cort Egan Neil La Chapelle	*The rhetoric of irony*

18 July	Valentyna Galadza Greg Cummer David Hoff Liz Kuntz Brandi Zebrak	*The company we keep*


Format and expectations
	It is always convenient to divide the labours by page count (different sections of the text assigned to different group members), but I have no requirements in this area at all. You can divide by theme. You can divide according to external structural concerns (background, argument, implications, applications, etc.). One person can do all the talking; you can alternate. It's completely open. What I care about is solely the state the class is in when you're finished: we should all have a clearer, more focused sense of what the book does, how its positions relate to other theoretical perspectives, and what it should mean to us as we go about our daily engagements with discourse. You should contextualize the book, not necessarily to Booth's historical milieu, but to your own understanding of text/discourse/literary/rhetorical theory machinery--bring in Habermas, Burke, Lyotard, Foucauld, Aristotle, whomever--framing our understanding of this specific book in the wider arena of engaging texts. Increasingly, as we move through the course, part of this framing should be Booth's own texts. You--and your audience--will have all read Rhetoric of fiction from the outset, and other texts as we move along; make use of this common ground. You should also draw on the essays in Antczak, on the other reserve readings, the linked web-materials, and any other relevant materials you uncover. This assignment will also have a life on the web, to increase the available resources for people teaching, learning, and/or researching Booth, so (however you structure your presentation) it should include an html file which summarizes the key elements of the book, and responds to them in some way (some evaluative way, since this is Booth we're dealing with)--due one week after your presentation. Dave Hoff and Brandi Zebrak have graciously agreed to coordinate this effort, so please submit copies to them as well as to me.
Grading
	There will be an overall mark, assigned by the success of the presentation, and a mutual assessment mark, where everyone in the group assigns a grade, with some justificatory commentary, to everyone else. Your grade will be 15% the former, 10% the latter. Sample assessments follow
	Fred Derf, A+	He surprised the hell out of me. I always thought he was a bonehead, but he knows everything there is to know about mid-last-century critical theory, and provided virtually all of the background. He worked very hard, especially on the last-minute group-dynamic issues when one of our members dropped out and moved to Thunder Bay, and was relentlessly encouraging to everyone. Can we get him to head the interim government in Iraq?
	Wilma Amliw, F-	A complete washout. She missed meetings, fought with us about trivial issues (or, worse, matters we'd already decided) when she did show up, and blew her deadlines. In the end, we gave her some small jobs, chasing down references and writing precis, but nobody was happy with what she did, and we had to throw all of it out, completely dropping that section. If I meet her five years from now, and find that she graduated and got a stable job, I'll eat a yak, horns and all.
	Dino Onid, B	A good team player. He never seemed to go out of his way, and his contributions weren't particularly inspired. He pulled his weight, though, and brought his sections in on time. He clearly wanted the presentation to succeed, but was happy to let others do the main work.
Resources
	If you need overheads, data projectors, singing cows, let me know ahead of time, and I'll see what I can do (many of the cows, however, are in quarantine)
Time
	60-90 minutes