Group presentations for “Loving the Bomb” Literature/Philosophy Learning Community
Assignment: A presentation 18-22 minutes in length. Please time yourselves before presenting to the class to
make sure you are within this time frame!
Format: Largely up to you, but it should be interesting. That means you will need to include some interaction
and/or some variety. 22 minutes of looking at PowerPoint bullets will be hard for your audience! Possibilities
include but are not limited to: A skit, an interactive lesson with props, a dramatic presentation of a scene from a
literature text (either by acting it out as written or by interpreting it in some other way – dance? music? rewriting
the scene for a particular reason?), a website (which you would demonstrate during your presentation), a
creative PowerPoint presentation (ideally with sounds and/or animation), a mock trial, or any combination of
these.
Audience: Your presentation should be deliberately aimed at a particular audience. The default audience is the
membership of this learning community, with the age, background, and knowledge that go along with that.
However, if you want the members of the community to pretend to be a different audience – e.g. 4th-graders or
the U.S. Congress or a city council or a group or entrepreneurs, etc., you should tell them so up front. In any
case, make sure your presentation is appropriate, interesting and informative for your target audience.
Content: Your presentation should do all of the following:
 engage with a dilemma or issue raised in the course by both a literary text and a philosophical work (a
text or a thought experiment), and you must make explicit reference to at least one literary text and one
philosophical work. You may choose a literary and philosophy text that have already been linked in the
course (like Invisible Man and Kant), but you are encouraged to make different pairings we haven’t
explored yet.
 explore some aspect of one or more of the three main themes of the course: The nature of the self and
the significance of will; Ethics and moral frameworks; Questions of truth and truth-claims.
 raise philosophical questions, and either provide your own (informed) answers to those questions, or
provide helpful methods for inquiring into answers to those questions.
 interpret or analyze or reflect on a literary text. You are encouraged to take an issue or scene that is
ambiguous in terms of what actually happened (what is the “truth”?) or what is the right thing to do.
 include things you have learned in the course, but there should also be additional content from outside
the course (e.g. historical Cold War information we didn’t learn in class, questions we didn’t address,
answers we may not have considered, etc.).
 Beyond these general guidelines, decisions about content should be based on the target audience you’ve
chosen.
Due dates: The date of your presentation will be assigned to you soon, but it will be either T 5/8 or Th 5/10.
You must also pitch your idea (the content and format) to Dr. Neighbors or Dr. Dinkins in the afternoon class on
Th 4/26.
Evaluation Criteria: The group presentation counts as 10% of your Philosophy grade and 10% of your English
grade. Dr. Neighbors and Dr. Dinkins will each assign separate grades for each presentation. Grades will be
assigned to individuals in each group. (You will receive a sheet later which will allow you to report on what
contributions each person made to the presentation.) Criteria:
 Careful reading of a literary text
 Interesting philosophical issues and questions
 Thoughtful exploration and inquiry into these issues and questions
 Evidence that you have learned from the philosophical content and methods we’ve learned this semester
 The creativity of the presentation