Students are expected to follow the English Department's minimum standards guidelines for all written work.

Academic Honesty:  Plagiarism is copying the words or ideas from another person and not giving that person credit.  I have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for plagiarism and students who plagiarize will fail the class. (For more information, see also p. 26 "Academic Dishonesty" in the college's catalog and The Bedford Handbook.)

Sonnet Presentation

You will select one sonnet by Wordsworth from our book and make a brief presentation (10-15 minutes) on it before leading us through a discussion of the poem.  Begin your presentation by reading the poem aloud to us and then lead us through an analysis of the poem using the TEWL (Template for Engaging With Literature) as a guide.  Make sure to rehearse your reading of the poem--you will rehearse your reading of the poem with a speech assistant the week of February 12.  I'm calling this assignment a presentation, but really it is more of a discussion.  In order to have a good discussion, you'll want to know the poem inside and out and prepare some questions to help us engage with the work. 

Your presentation/discussion will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Reading of the poem (enunciation, volume, clarity, tone, appropriate tone)
• Knowledge of the poem (mastery of the poem in terms of the TEWL features)
• Structure of the presentation/discussion (effective management of the discussion with questions, transitions, follow-up, and fill in)
• Energy/enthusiasm (generation of interest, intellectual excitement, curiosity for your poem.

You are not required to do any outside research for this assignment, but if you do use an outside resource (aside from the OED) you must complete an annotated bibliography.  Click here for annotated bibliography guidelines. 

Painting Presentation

You will make a brief (10-15) minute presentation of a painting and connect it to a work or idea from our class.  I will introduce you to Artstor, and give you some possible artists and artworks to consider.

As with the sonnet presentation, this presentation should be a hybrid between a presentation and a discussion.  In other words, I'd like you to give us some basic information about the painting to begin (brief artist biography, when the painting was created, etc.--2 minutes MAX) and then I'd like you to lead us through a discussion about the painting in terms of the elements below.  In general, you should elicit and manage our reactions, but also fill in things we might have missed.

• What do we see when we look at the painting?  What objects are represented and how are they represented? What are the formal elements of the painting? (line, color, shapes, production procedures) Elicit from us what we see and then show how that aligns with what you see.

• How does this painting relate to a literary work or an idea from our course?  Again, elicit from us what we see and then show how that aligns with what you see.

As with the sonnet presentation, you are not required to do outside research, but if you do, you must create an annotated bibliography.  Click here for annotated bibliography guidelines. 

Your presentation/discussion will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Presentation of the painting (could we actually see it? did the presenter practice with the presentation software?)
• Knowledge of the painting (mastery of the painting, familiarity with its elements, ability to answer questions)
• Structure of the presentation/discussion (effective management of the discussion with questions, transitions, follow-up, and fill in)
• Energy/enthusiasm (generation of interest, intellectual excitement, curiosity about your painting)

Annotated Bibliography Guidelines

You are not required to do any outside research for the sonnet presentation or the painting presentation (although it might be helpful for the painting presentation). If you do use an outside resource, you must complete an alphabetized annotated bibliography of all the sources you used.  An annotated bibliography is a list of MLA style bibliographical entries with brief summaries (4-6 sentences) of each article or chapter.  See a recent edition of The Bedford Handbook or The MLA Style Guide for guidelines for documentation and sample bibliographic entries. Click here for a sample annotated bibliography entry.