Friday, October 31, 2008

In-Class Presentation

This is for my Film and Lit class:

Concerning the Fahrenheit 451 in-class presentation:

First I should say that I was lucky to have a good group. Everyone was very involved and I felt that there was a beneficial give-and-take going on. Jacob set up a message board and it proved to be a great way for all of us to keep in touch.

My specific contributions to the group included an article suggestion, a video, and a couple focusing emails.

The article I suggested is from the book “Ray Bradbury: a Critical Companion. I suggested Chapter 5, pages 53 – 62. That chapter deals directly with the plot, characters, and setting of the novel and offers perspective on the text. I thought it was a good all-purpose article.

Article

For the presentation, I found an animation that does the entire novel in 17 minutes. I suggested possibly using it to show a new way of looking at any particular scene in the novel. I’m actually sad that we didn’t get to use it in our presentation.



Additionally, there were a couple of instances when I helped to focus the group down on point by offering specific suggestions. Again, my group was great, and we had a lot of good ideas out in the ether, and I think that I helped to organize those ideas. Last week I sent out an email suggesting to the group that we request class time to organize (thanks again for that time Dr. Wexler). I sent out a similar email the day before the presentation just to make sure that everyone was on the same page.

During the presentation I worked (as did everyone in our group, I think) to encourage a lively discussion. As needed, I took up positions contrary to my own in order to help that discussion along.

I am very happy with the Fahrenheit 451 group. I think all of its members should be pleased.

No comments: