Per the university’s decree, our final exam will be held on Tuesday, April 20th, from 8-10 p.m. in our normal classroom (1012 JKB).
The final exam will consist of individual presentations related to your final projects.
You have 3-4 minutes. This should be long enough to give a developed presentation, but short enough that you need to be concise (and not boring). You will be timed: for every 30 seconds over or under the 3-4 minutes, you will lose 5% off your grade for the final. For example, if you presented a presentation worthy of a 90%, but took either 2.5 or 4.5 minutes, you would receive and 85%; if the same presentation took 2 minutes or 5 minutes, you would receive an 80%, etc. I recommend practicing your presentation before hand to make sure you’re in the correct time frame.
You have 2 presentation options. Choose 1 of the following:
- Convince us of the argument of your Argument 3. (For example, if you are arguing that there are great outdoor activities to do in Provo all year round, then convince the class that we should do these outdoor activities all year round, and empower us so we can realistically do them.) This option could be particularly effective if your classmates are part of the demographic of your target audience (because then the class can actually act on the persuasion), or if you can quickly put us into the mindset of the target audience (i.e. if your audience is kids and you’re presenting about stories, have us sit in a circle on the floor).
- Teach us a lesson on persuasion or rhetoric, using your Argument 3 as the example (or as one of your examples). This lesson should have practical application for how it can (and should) be used by the audience of your peers as fellow people who will need to use persuasion in future situations. In a sense, this option is building on your reflection, in which you’re analyzing the rhetorical choices you made and made. For this option, a mini-lesson, you should probably focus on only 1 or 2 persuasive/rhetorical principles. These may be principles we’ve discussed in the class, or principles you’ve come up with on your own.
For either presentation, you should apply the following principles from Made to Stick to guide your presentation decisions:
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Concrete
- Credible
- Emotions
- Stories
You may also want to consider classical rhetorical principles as you construct your presentation:
- rhetorical situation (audience, speaker, issue)
- rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos)
- exigencies, constraints, and the life cycles of issues
- enthymemes and the disposition of an argument
- procatalepsis (dealing with a counterargument)
- publics
- style vs. substance
- cohesion, amplification and development, coherence, and form
- use of visuals or other multimedia to interact with your presentation (i.e. visual culture)
Technology usage: should you choose to use technology, you are responsible for guaranteeing that it works. If you haven’t done so before, I recommend playing around on a classroom podium to get the hang of it (anyone with a student ID can). There will be only a minute between each presentation for take down and set up, but you are welcome to pull up elements of your presentation before class. If you will be hooking up a Mac, make sure to bring the proper adapter and to practice getting the display settings correct. This is not to discourage you from using technology; it has many benefits that can supplement and enhance a presentation. This is just to say that you’re responsible for making sure it works, and excuses will not be accepted.
Grading
Grading will be done on a holistic scale as follows:
A: Excellent presentation. Persuasive and effective for the audience; achieves its rhetorical goal of either convincing your audience of a particular message or teaching a rhetorical principle.Visuals and multimedia usage is appropriate to the presentation. The speaker engages the audiences and uses appropriate rhetorical techniques to convince or teach them.
B: Good presentation. Overall persuasive and effective for the audience, though it may suffer from organizational problems, not dealing with the counterargument, average presentation skills, etc. Visuals/multimedia is appropriate to the presentation, but not properly executed. Overall, the speaker engages the audiences and uses appropriate rhetorical techniques to convince or teach them, though the audience may not be moved to action or may not be empowered to truly use the rhetorical principles discussed.
C: An adequate presentation, which either attempts to persuade or teach the audience. The presentation exhibits large organizational problems, lack of awareness of audience, is lacking an implicit assumption (if an argument) or specific application (if teaching a rhetorical principle); further, the presentation itself has problems (feels unrehearsed/sloppy, not speaking loud enough, no eye contact, facing away from the audience, etc.).
D: The presentation does not meet the assignment, or is poorly executed, thus leaving the goal of the assignment ineffectual.
