Up Next in ENGL 1500/2500: Presentations

As we draw close to presentations for the Multimodal Unit, Ben Parker shares a lesson to help students analyze design principles in presentation aids, so that they can create slides that more effectively address their rhetorical situation. Creatively presenting what real life consequences of poorly designed slides can be, this very engaging and persuasive lesson helps students enhance and practice their design and communication skills.

Emily Riley has flipped the order of assignments in the Multimodal Unit so that students give presentations on their drafts rather than the final products. She finds it gives students a sense that their feedback matters and that they have all helped each other improve their projects before revision. At the same time, it helps them practice giving and receiving feedback in a public way. As an added bonus, this method allows instructors to grade drafts and presentations in real time. Emily follows up on both her comments and peers’ feedback during mini conferences on revision day to ensure that they make sense and contain enough detail for students.

Below, you can find Ben and Emily’s activities as detailed lesson plans.

The PowerPoint to Save Seven People

Purpose of the activity: Students will identify and analyze design principles in presentation aids.

Materials or resources needed: Internet access (including access to site URL below), access to presentation aid software (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi, etc.).

Description of the activity:

1. Using the article “Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people” and the NASA slide in the article, students will create and post a PowerPoint/Google Slides/etc. presentation aid that would more clearly convey what they think the engineers were trying to communicate to their audience.
2. Each student will select and claim a post from a classmate, prioritizing classmates who don’t have a reply yet. Students will analyze the classmate’s presentation aid using the following or similar questions as a guide:
   1. What design elements can you identify in your peer’s presentation aid that substantially differ from the original presentation aid in the article? What can you infer about the reasoning behind those design choices, and how? What design choices do you find effective or ineffective, and why?
   2. What rhetorical appeals can you identify in your peer’s presentation aid, and how do they differ from the original? What can you infer about the reasoning behind these appeals, and how? What appeals do you find effective or ineffective, and why?

Potential adaptations:

• This activity reflects different student approaches to adapting a text. Some may focus on fixing typos, which may be less effective than substantive changes, while others might make extreme changes that don’t fit the rhetorical situation. To address this topic, you may try to discuss with students how texts in different media are adapted, remixed, rebooted, etc. using resources such as the TV Tropes page Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification – TV Tropes or playing some remixes/adaptations of songs like versions of “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower (Official Audio)), Jimi Hendrix (The Jimi Hendrix Experience – All Along The Watchtower (Official Audio)), and Bear McCreary of Battlestar Galactica (All Along the Watchtower) during the discussion and students’ in-class work on the project.
• This activity can also integrate AI by asking students to enter the NASA slide, their revisions, and/or their partners’ revisions into an AI generator and compare the AI analysis to their own.

Flipping Multimodal Presentations

Purpose of the activity:

• Build student’s confidence giving and receiving verbal feedback in front of their peers
• Provide a sense that presentations create a tangible benefit for their projects (feedback)
• Make peer review of the project feel even more rewarding

Materials or resources needed:

• Showrunner sheet (print)
• Timer sheets (print)
• Recorder sheets (share Google doc with recorder each day)

Description of the activity:
Explain the process to students when they sign up for presentations and presentation roles so that it goes smoothly on presentation day. Any student who takes on a special role: showrunner, timer, or recorder, is excused from peer review (although they often participate anyway). The showrunner makes sure the class is ready to begin each presentation, announces who is presenting and who is next, and facilitates peer review. The timer writes down how long each presentation takes after raising a time card when the presenter hits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 minutes. The recorder takes notes on the peer review comments, including the name of each commenter so that they get credit for participating in peer review.

Before class

• Share a blank copy of the recorder template with each student who will serve as a recorder in your classes that day.
• Add the names of the presenters for the day on the showrunner sheets, and print one off for your showrunners.
• Print off the timer sheets. For the minute cards, cut those into strips that are easy for the timer to hold up for presenters.
• Hand out these materials to the relevant student and check in with them to make sure they’re still up for the task today.
• Have presenters test their technology before class starts.
• Pull up your comment bank(s) as well as Draft and Presentation speed graders on Canvas so you can flip between these tabs quickly.

During class

• Start class by greeting students. Announce today’s showrunner, timer, and recorder. Have them wave so students know where to look. Remind students to give their name before giving their peer review comment.
• Have students show active listening, clear desks, etc.
• Hand class over to the showrunner (with some applause).
• The showrunner calls up the first presenter and alerts the next to get ready.
• The instructor grades the presentation and the multimodal draft during the presentation. The presenter’s last slide is a picture of their multimodal draft.
• At the end of the presentation, the showrunner asks for the time. The recorder shares the presentation length.● Next, the showrunner calls for 3-5 glows (positive comments) about the presenter’s multimodal draft, encouraging people to speak up if needed. After that, they call for 3-5 grows. The recorder writes down each comment and the name of the person who said it.
• The showrunner asks for applause for this presenter. Then, they call the next person up to repeat the process.

After class

• Add peer review comments from the recorders’ pages to the comment box on the Draft assignment.
• Mark peer review complete for those who participated (based on names on the recorder’s sheet).
• Complete prep for next round of presentations.

Potential adaptations:

Rather than announcing peer review comments to the entire class, students could fill out forms, leave comments on discussion boards, or otherwise write their feedback. It would eliminate the need for a recorder and suit quieter students.