Hawthorne/Poe Presentation Activity

PREP FOR HAWTHORNE/POE PRESENTATION ACTIVITY (worth 2 Assignment grades). This is a mock presentation, just the prep part, which will make sense when you read the instructions.

1. Skim through the short stories by clicking the folder under Literary Analysis. There are 7.

2. Choose one that excites your imagination, one that you’d like to use for your presentation and your analysis. Print it out and annotate it for story elements, literary devices, and themes. Make sure to consider HOW the author uses the device, element, or ___________ to make meaning. Another question you might ask is HOW _____________ contributes to the reader’s understanding of the work as a whole.

3. Print out and read carefully through the instructions for the presentation.

You will choose a Hawthorne or Poe short story from the Moodle folder, then email me your choice. This should be the same story you will write about for Formal Paper 3. Make sure to download before printing out so that we’re all using the same page numbers for citations.

2. Usually, this activity requires in-class presentations, but we will pretend. Instead, we’ll present to each other using our class forum application. Prepare and attach a PowerPoint (7-10 slides) that teaches your Hawthorne or Poe short story by showing a) how the author uses a literary element to develop the story and b) why the element is essential to the reader’s understanding of a critical theme.

3. All slides should have pictures and text.

4. CITATIONS: Since you’ll mention the author’s name and title in your introduction, there is no need to repeat it parenthetically, so you will only cite the page number of your quoted or referenced part of the story. Format parenthetical citations as follows:

In “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” the author admits that his story’s protagonist has become “the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories” (2).

Notice the placement of the close quote and the period after the close parenthesis. See MLA paper formatting for more information on this.

5. In a paragraph of at least 10 sentences, comment on at least one classmate’s presentation by the due date. Consider comments regarding the student’s responses to step 2 above and any other notables on which you’d like to comment.