assignments ENGL344 Young Adult Literature PECHA KUCHA Theory-to-Practice
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 ltorda@bridgew.edu www.leetorda.com NOTE: All classes, student meetings, and open student hours (office hours) this semester will be held virtually via Zoom. Need to make an during a time that is not an open student hour? appointment? Let me know you want to meet by adding yourself to my google.doc appointment calendar here: https://goo.gl/3CqLf and I will send you a zoom link for the time you sign up for. |
Spring 2021 Open Hours for students (office hours):
T&R 11:00-12:30 W 11:00-12:00 F 3:00-4:00 and by appointment. Click here to attend ANY of the Open Hour for Students Zoom sessions listen above. HOW TO ATTEND ZOOM CLASS Click here to attend ENGL 301 Writing & the Teaching of Writing Click here to attend ENGL 344 Young Adult Literature Click here to attend ENGL 489 Advanced Portfolio workshop. |
THE RATIONAL
I know, you want to know what that means. Pecha Kucha is an import from Japan, an idea for presentation created by two architects that were frustrated by years of bad PowerPoint presentations. I think we can all appreciate that. It uses the visual aid that PowerPoint helps us with, uses parts of the software that are relatively underused, and crafts an argument or narrative that efficiently and effectively deliver content.
As I was thinking about how to create assignments for our online course, I immediately thought of trying Pecha Kucha. Such an assignment requires the reading and writing skills you’d expect from any sort of English class on this sort, but it makes possible the sharing of learning among colleagues that I’m discovering can be hard in an online setting.
I've modeled the process in a few Monday Updates--both successfully and unsuccessfully. But, as I said both times, I wasn't really doing an official Pecha Kucha because I wasn't following the rules. I'm asking you to follow the rules.
THE FORMAT
For a general introduction to Pecha Kucha and a sample presentation, click here .
To watch my Pecha Kucha on Wolfgang Iser click on the file here:
I know, you want to know what that means. Pecha Kucha is an import from Japan, an idea for presentation created by two architects that were frustrated by years of bad PowerPoint presentations. I think we can all appreciate that. It uses the visual aid that PowerPoint helps us with, uses parts of the software that are relatively underused, and crafts an argument or narrative that efficiently and effectively deliver content.
As I was thinking about how to create assignments for our online course, I immediately thought of trying Pecha Kucha. Such an assignment requires the reading and writing skills you’d expect from any sort of English class on this sort, but it makes possible the sharing of learning among colleagues that I’m discovering can be hard in an online setting.
I've modeled the process in a few Monday Updates--both successfully and unsuccessfully. But, as I said both times, I wasn't really doing an official Pecha Kucha because I wasn't following the rules. I'm asking you to follow the rules.
THE FORMAT
- A Pecha Kucha requires 20 slides at 20 seconds per slide. This is non-negotiable. It is like saying you need to write a 10 page paper, not a 9 page paper and not an 11 page paper, but a 10 page paper.
- You will locate or produce 20 images, one per slide. There is some wiggle room here, as you’ll see in any examples you check out. You might repeat images. You might add to an image for a second 20 seconds on the same image.
- Using the “RECORD SLIDE SHOW” feature in PowerPoint, which is located on the “SLIDE SHOW” tab, you will actually record your twenty, 20 second scripts for each of your slides.
- If you are wondering, this means you are recording a 6 minute, 20 second presentation.
- You have the option to work ALONE or in pairs to complete this project. You don’t need to meet to do it. You could do this largely online. YOU CAN’T USE THE GOOGLE DOCS VERSION OF POWERPOINT TO DO THIS ASSIGNMENT. It won’t work because you can’t record in the google.doc version.
- To use the template I made for your Pecha Kucha and for a copy of the instructions on how to record your Pecha Kucha script, click here.
For a general introduction to Pecha Kucha and a sample presentation, click here .
To watch my Pecha Kucha on Wolfgang Iser click on the file here:
| pecha.kucha.sample.torda.pptx |
THE READINGS
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GROUP ONE: Aesthetic Experiences in the School Curriculum: Assessing the Value of Rosenblatt's Transactional Theory
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GROUP TWO: A Theory of Narrative Empathy
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GROUP THREE: Reconsiderations: Louise Rosenblatt and the Ethical Turn in Literary Theory
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GROUP FOUR: Which Reader's Response?
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GROUP FIVE: The Ethics of Teaching Disturbing Pasts: Reader Response, Historical Contextualization, and Rhetorical (Con)Textualization of Holocaust Texts in English
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THE CONTENT
HOW I WILL EVALUATE YOUR PECHA KUCHA
Well, for starters, this is a new thing for all of you, so I’m going to cut you loads of slack. The Pecha Kucha project is worth 15% of your grade.
To earn a “B” grade, you must
In order to earn an “A” grade
In order to earn a "C" grade
If you can't meet the "C" grade requirements, you will fail the 15% you could earn for this assignment.
Good luck and don’t stress.
- I will post to this page, the syllabus, and, with any luck, your individual book club google.docs, five articles about reading theory. You will be assigned one article per group. Each person in that group will read the same article. You should use the class time the week of 16 March 2021 to talk about what the essay is about, figure out any questions you have about the text, about the project, contact or meet with me to discuss those questions, divide up the workload of the project, and, quite literally, do as much work on the project as you can during that time.
- You need to (obviously) read and identify the significant ideas in your article. So a thoughtful summary with a focus on the thesis/argument the writer is making. This is tricky: you could get trapped in giving too much summary and still not give us a clear sense of what the thesis of your argument is. So you want to focus on what the author(s) is/are arguing and use summary to support that.
- Then, using any FICTION text we’ve read or will read in class, make a connection between how teaching this text in a particular way demonstrates some of the significant ideas in your article.
- Render your ideas in, as explained above, twenty slides, with twenty seconds of explanation for each.
- Save your presentation as a file that you email to me. If it turns out that files are too big, I wil make a file on dropbox that you can save it to . I will give you instructions on how to access that cloud file the week the Pecha Kucha is due.
- This means you’ll need to talk a little bit about WHAT you would do with the fiction in a classroom, based on the article you’ve read. It also means you’ll need to talk about WHY your article indicates to you that this text and/or the way you’d teach it demonstrates big ideas in your article.
- You could, by contrast talk about why a particular text might not be a best choice and/or ways that would not be a great way to teach the text based on the big ideas of your article (what I do with Gossip Girl in my explanation of my sample Pecha Kucha on Iser.
- I encourage you to watch my pecha-kucha as an example (again), and to take advantage of my online office hours as you prepare your materials.
- Also, as always, use the discussion board space for questions about the project. If you have a question, everyone will have a question. You can locate the Q&A discussion board for our class in the February archives.
HOW I WILL EVALUATE YOUR PECHA KUCHA
Well, for starters, this is a new thing for all of you, so I’m going to cut you loads of slack. The Pecha Kucha project is worth 15% of your grade.
To earn a “B” grade, you must
- Read your article
- Follow the 20 slide, 20 second per slide format
- Have it ready to be viewed by the class on the due date on the syllabus.
- Reflect on the project when prompted to by me (this will be in class).
In order to earn an “A” grade
- You must do all of the requirements for the “B” grade and:
- Do a half-way decent job of explaining the theory/article you read in relationship to the YA lit text you chose as an example.
In order to earn a "C" grade
- You must come close to following the 20 slide, 20 second per slide format
If you can't meet the "C" grade requirements, you will fail the 15% you could earn for this assignment.
Good luck and don’t stress.