Instructions for Presentations

Presentations: Your aim is to lead--for 30 minutes--a lively and informed discussion about your film.  You will lead discussion toward your thesis by asking salient questions (leaving time for students to answer and responding authentically to their comments) and soliciting discussion about clips you have selected. Avoid asking questions with definite right or wrong answers.  Ask questions that will promote discussion from two or more perspectives AND that can be substantiated with citations from the text.      

A strategy for coming up with effective questions: consider using Prof. Goulet's sample questions in A Glossary of Film Terms as starting points. Note that you can ask questions about different aspects of filmmaking (costume, casting, acting, editing, etc.).

Presentations receiving the highest evaluations will engage with Frye's analysis, and integrate readings, film, and cinema terms in leading a vigorous discussion.

Each presenter in the group will need to do research on her topic, reading at least 3 credible secondary sources about the film, the director, a leading actor in the film, or the genre of romance (remember to use the Library Guide online at the McPhaidin Library--see link on the blog). List these sources in a bibliography submitted with the presentation paper.  At least one of these sources must be printed or originally from a printed source—a book, a chapter in a book, and article—and not a review unless particularly scholarly or relevant. The collection at the library has excellent resources for scholarly materials on Romantic Comedy.

On the day of your presentation, you will turn into me:

•  a bibliography of secondary sources (ideally, presenters will have different secondary sources)
• a list of the questions you prepared for discussion