Passage of Choice Preparation and Presentation

 

Formatting your passage:

1. Choose paper size that best fits your passage: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 OR 8 1/2 x 11

2. One side only! Leave AT LEAST 1/2 inch margins all around (including bib.)

3. Lay out passage efficiently on your page. Free white space gives us a place to jot notes and responses.

4. Write or type complete MLA-style bibliography entry at bottom of page.

5. In upper right hand corner, write standard assignment heading:

Your Name (First Last)

Period ___

Assignment Title (Passage of Choice)

Date

 

Prepare your presentation (2 to 5 minutes max.). Cover at least four of the six items below, in the order you consider most effective:

1. Read aloud with feeling (all or part of passage)

2. Why you chose this passage, and/or how you discovered it

3. Meaning/appeal it has for you (content)

4. Observations about how it is written (form)

5. One significant literary feature (form) and its effect (content) on the passage

6. What is inarguable vs. what is arguable about the meaning

 

Prepare ALL classmates' passages (four to five per day)

1. Read passage silently or aloud.

2. Write first impressions (two to five words) either directly on handout or with passage title/author in Compo.

 

Prepare ASSIGNED classmates' passage (approx. one per day)

1. Read passage aloud (to yourself, friend and/or family member)

2. In Compo:

(a) Copy title/author of passage and presenter's name

(b) Write one honest sentence in response (form and/or content).

Your sentence may be declarative (statement) or interrogatory (question to presenter or perhaps author), but in either case it must be specific enough to show that you have engaged the passage.

(c) Choose a small portion (5 to 10 words) of the text to examine closely, and quote these as "text evidence" in your commentary (d) below.

(d) Comment as you see fit (2 to 3 additional sentences) on the role of your chosen text in the passage:

are moved by? can't fathom?

reminds you of or makes you think about?

why this choice in this passage?

literary feature/s

effect on total meaning?

role of this text in relation to rest of passage?

NOTE: (b) + (c) + (d) should equal a coherent paragraph of literary analysis, with (b) as topic sentence, (c) as quoted text evidence and (d) as discussion.