English 1301 Oral Performance and Personal Commentary Assignment
Dr. Rowe
Here are the instructions:
You will do a dramatic reading of a short selection of two pages or less that I have approved
from the Norton Reader.
You will also do a dramatic reading of a personal response/commentary on the chosen piece.
Make your reservation of a particular selection with me so that we can avoid duplication.
First come, first served with respect to reservations. I must agree to your choice, also.
-Write a personal response of 450-550 words about why you think the work is significant or
interesting from your personal point of view. Make specific references to the text in the
course of your personal response. Avoid only summarizing or giving biographical
information about the author. Read your written remarks aloud after your performance of the
piece itself. Turn in a typed copy of your commentary to me and submit an electronic copy of
it to me as a Word document attached to an email message.
-Compose an interesting title of your own for your commentary. Don’t just use the title of the
work under discussion for your title, although it may be included in your title.
-Turn in the written commentary to me just before your performance in the classroom. That
means you will need to bring two copies, one for me and one for you to read aloud.
Be sure to do the following:dfbxzg
-Practice reading the work and reading your commentary aloud outside of class. Perhaps you
can team up with a class colleague or two to practice with, or a family member or friend.
-Look up unfamiliar words so that you know what all of them mean. Also consult me or an
audio dictionary if you are still unsure of the pronunciation after looking up the word.
-Remember to read loudly but not too fast. Pronounce each word as clearly as possible. If
you are unsure how to pronounce any given word, consult with me or a dictionary
beforehand. You should know how you are going to pronounce each word before you begin
your performance. Make the print large enough on your reading copy so that you can
easily read it.
-In your commentary, emphasize why you are particularly interested in the selection. The
emphasis should be on your personal response and specific thoughts about specifics of the
text selected. Your commentary should not be just a summary or analysis but a thoughtful
personal response.
-Include a Work Cited page. See example on reverse side or second page of this document.
Make sure you revise and edit the written portion of the assignment. When making a specific
reference to something in the text, indicate paragraph numbers at the end of the sentence in
question: (par. 5). Write in Standard Written English and in general follow the MLA
guidelines.
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Rowe 2
Work Cited
Thomas, Lewis. “Notes on Punctuation.” 1979. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of
Nonfiction. Ed. Linda H. Peterson, et al. 13th ed. New York: Norton, 2012. 450-2.
Print.
This is an example of how you should format your citation.
Note that I am asking you to insert the date of original publication between the title of the
essay and the title of the book in which it is found.
The year cited immediately following the title of the essay is the date of original publication
of Thomas’s piece. The best place to find that date in our anthology is the section titled
“Permissions and Acknowledgements.” In the current edition of Norton that section begins
on page 1171. Those permissions are cited alphabetically by the author’s last name.
*Note on formatting the “hanging indent” style of the work cited paragraph above:
I find paragraph formatting by right-clicking on the document. Then, under the Indents and
Spacing tab, I go to the Indentation section. I then click the arrow under Special and select
Hanging.
It is a good idea also to click “Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style.”
6/14/2015