WR 098 Team Oral Presentations (Discussion Leaders)
For this assignment, you will work in a team of 3-4 students to lead a lively intellectual discussion among
all of your classmates on an assigned essay, and you will also participate as members of an audience during
your classmates’ team discussions.
Team Requirements:
 Facilitate 30-minute discussion in class.
o Do not lecture.
o Speak clearly, correctly, and in an engaging academic manner.
o Become experts on your assigned essay.
o Ensure the participation of all or almost all of your classmates.
o Build in opportunities for your classmates to actively analyze the reading and share their
own interpretations (see the “Key Elements” section, at the end of this handout, for more
specifics about the content of the discussion and analysis).
o Participate equally with your teammates, at all stages of this assignment.
 After your preliminary team meeting, one team member must, at least 10 days before your
presentation, submit (by email to me at cmichaud@bu.edu, copied to each of the other teammates) a
plan for working on your discussion. Answer these questions based on your preliminary work as a
team:
1. Where will you meet, when, and for how long?
2. What steps have you identified for the presentation, and when will each be completed
by?
3. Who is responsible for what at each step?
4. What open questions do you have for me?
 Create a handout to accompany the discussion. Your handout should be:
i. 2-4 typed pages, printed and stapled (double-spaced is not necessary, and
double-sided is okay)
ii. correctly written and cited (MLA format)
iii. present in class in enough hard copies for everyone in the room
iv. clear and easy to follow for your classmates (type out the quotes you will
be referring to from the book, and double-check that there are no typos or
mistakes with quotation, etc.)
Individual Requirements:
 Within 24 hours of your presentation, each team member must submit to me (emailed to me at
cmichaud@bu.edu, not copied to your teammates) an individual reflection on your presentation,
group work, and role. Answer the following questions based on the presentation:
a. How well do you think you and your teammates worked together? Describe the
process of collaboration, detailing each member’s actual roles.
b. What was the value of the team aspect of this assignment? What did you learn?
c. How well did you stick to your plan? Why?
d. What might you do differently in future group projects? Why?
e. How well do you think this project represents the best work of each member of
your group? Why?
Audience Requirements:
 When other teams lead discussions, you will need to be an active member of the class, participating
thoroughly, asking and answering questions, etc.
 Within 24 hours of each presentation other than your own (that is, within 24 hours of every
discussion facilitated by another team), you will need to submit to me (emailed to me at
cmichaud@bu.edu) answers to the following questions:
1. What did you learn about this essay as a result of this discussion?
2. What did you learn about argument, evidence, rhetorical structures, style, and/or
diction as a result of this discussion? How can you apply what you learned today
to your own writing?
3. What did you learn about the process of giving an oral presentation, preparing a
handout for your classmates, and/or working in groups? How will this knowledge
help you in future projects?
Key Elements for Discussion:
Since the bulk of the discussion should be close analysis of the essay at hand, you must ensure that you ask
at least 3-4 carefully thought-out questions to the class to spark discussion, and you must be ready with at
least 4-6 specific passages that you want the class to examine. Questions and passages (quotations) must be
printed on the handout.
You will need help your classmates analyze the following aspects of your assigned essay. You do not need
to do them in this order, and it is up to you how you do them. You may divide your classmates into groups,
write on the board, use games, discussions, or anything you see fit.
 Themes: What are the key themes in this essay? How do they relate to each other, and to those of
other texts we have read together?
 Style: What rhetorical devices does the author use? Why? How is the essay constructed? How does
its style relate to its content?
 Vocabulary: What are the key difficult words in this text? Which words can you see yourself using
in other academic contexts? What kind of diction does the author use, and how does this type of
diction affect our reading of the essay?
 Grammar (sentence structure): What do you notice about the author’s syntax? What structures, on
the sentence level, does the author use, and why? What can you teach your classmates about
grammar on the basis of examples from this essay?
Criteria for Assessment:
An excellent (A/A-) presentation has a perfect, error-free handout with all passages from the text
cited properly, as well as clear and grammatical questions to spark class discussion. The
presentation is delivered in an appropriate academic manner, with clear speech. There is ample
discussion of the text among most or all of your classmates, covering both the content and style of
the text. If questions of vocabulary arise (as they should and most likely will), you are ready to
answer them.
A good (B+/B/B-) presentation may have errors on the handout and may not manage time
effectively, but still manages to cover all important aspects in an appropriate manner with good
class participation.
A satisfactory (C+/C/C-) presentation likely has errors on the handout and may skim over one of the
required sections. This presentation may not leave enough time for the class to discuss or may not
offer enough questions for the class to discuss fully. Presenters may be hard to understand.
An unsatisfactory (D/F) presentation may be missing sections, may show a basic lack of
understanding of the text on the part of the presenters, and leaves the class little to discuss.
Presenters may be extremely hard to understand.