I remember clearly my first in-class presentation at university. I was in Mary Barry's third-year Shakespeare class at Memorial, and she set up the papers in debate format. I was nervous as I squared off against a brilliant young woman, also destined for the profession, but I knew I would prevail when, turning over her script, her hands rose above the edge of her lectern, and they were shaking violently.
I have always taken some solace in knowing when other people are as uncomfortable as I.
We began presentations in our class this week, but I have not organized them as debates. For each topic, one student presents and another, with a week to work with the script, must deliver a response. Over the years, people have been nervous about critiquing the work of their classmates. Basically, I expect that the response will summarize the thesis of the presentation. If there are weaknesses, the response can fix them; if there is something interesting, the response can extend the idea. It need not, indeed it should not, be unpleasant. We can leave attempts to embarrass each other until graduate school, where presentations are bloodsport.
I was not displeased with these first efforts, though it is clear that the students, predictably, were not always comfortable. Does one refer to ones classmates by their first names? Their last? Both? What happens when citing the prof? We got through all those kinds of things, but what disappointed me was the lack of secondary research in the response papers. The syllabus sets out that each of these presentations need five sources: one could simply revisit some of the resources used in the position papers. Otherwise, are we not just hearing visceral reactions? Who needs a week to prepare those?
Comments