Individual or Group Presentation Topics

ENGL 470

Group Presentation

Each person will be required to participate in a 20-minute group presentation on an aspect of African-American history pertinent to one of Morrison’s novels. Your report should draw some relationships between the information you've researched and the book we are reading. Your report MUST include a works cited page on which you list ALL the sources you used, including the web addresses of any online sources of information and visual or audio images. Use MLA format. Be sure that you indicate ALL direct quotations from sources AND paraphrases of sources in your report. Use parenthetical references after each direct quote or paraphrase to indicate the author or source and the page for printed sources. Use the complete URL address for web sources. You must also hand in any and all notes that you use during your presentation.

If you do a PowerPoint or web page presentation, you must include a works cited page or pages at the end of your presentation. You must document every web site you use, whether you used it for information or for a visual, audio, or video file. In addition, for each slide you include in your Powerpoint presentation, you must include at the bottom the url address for any information on that slide which you got from the Web and for all images or audio files used on that slide. If this becomes visually unattractive, then you can do your works cited pages slide by slide, indicating which sources you used on each slide. Simply number the slides in your works cited pages and then list the sources used on each slide.

No matter which format you use, you must hand in a hard copy of your presentation including your works cited page. If you are doing a primarily lecture format, then you must hand in an outline of the points you cover and include a works cited page. The outline of your points must be typed. If you do a Powerpoint or web page presentation, you must hand in a hard copy by printing out all your Powerpoint slides.

No matter which format you use, you must NOT merely download information from the web and read it or speak from it during your presentation. This would constitute plagiarism.

You may present your information in any number of formats: a lecture using visual materials such as handouts or overheads; a lecture using audio or video clips; a PowerPoint presentation; a web page presentation you've created using a Word web page wizard or some other html editor; a combination of these; a musical performance accompanying an informative lecture. No matter which format you choose, you MUST include a works cited page that indicates your sources of information. You must also clearly indicate exactly where you've used sources in your lecture, PowerPoint, or web-based report by using a parenthesis after the paraphrased or quoted information.

For PowerPoint presentations, you must include a slide or slides stating all your Works Cited information. You may want to arrange your works cited by slides, listing each slide and then stating every source you used for that slide, including books, articles, web sites and any other sources. You must indicate the exact url address of web sites and of all images, audio, and video files that you use in your presentation.

Assessment Criteria:

Ø Quality and amount of the information;

Ø Correct documentation using parenthetical references and works cited page;

Ø Organization and clarity of the presentation, including staying within the 20-minute limit;

Ø Effective format and lively, interesting presentation;

Ø Projection of voice and effective use of gesture and movement

Individual or Group Presentation Topics (See the syllabus for others)

I have arranged these possible topics according to particular novels, but if you would like to do one of these presentations when we read a different novel than the one under which it is listed, consult with me and we’ll see if we can arrange it for another time on the syllabus.

The Bluest Eye

1) lynchings of Black Men in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Ida B. Wells-Barnett's campaign against lynching, protests of black community against lynchings, etc.

2) the Scottsboro boys' case (racial profiling and false prosecutions for rape)

3) the blues--just what is it and what experience does it articulate (use some examples of the blues prior to and up through the 1920s) (Could also be presented during the Song of Solomon or Jazz units.)

4) African-American spirituals, call-and-response religious music or the Black vernacular musical tradition (Could also be presented during the Song of Solomon or Beloved unit.)

Sula

1) the role of Black soliders in World War I (the 369th, 370th, and 371st regiments)

2) violence against Black solidiers in Houston during WW I

3) violence against returning Black soliders after the war, etc

4) the trauma of shell shocked soldiers in World War I

5) non-western, non-dualistic spirituality of west African religions (The book Flashes of the Spirit is a good source on this), animism, etc.

Song of Solomon

1) the African "Flying Men" stories

2) the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the struggle of Blacks for labor rights

3) The Civil Rights Movement and the question of non-violence and violence in the struggle. This could include three "mini-reports" such as:

4) the philosophy and social action of the Black Panthers;

5) the teachings and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr., based on a Ghandian philosophy of non-violent resistance and civil disobedience;

6) the spiritual journey of Malcolm X, his activism, and his evolving philosophy.

7) Elements of African culture in Song of Solomon (see Gay Wilentz's article in African American Review and MELUS—as well as in Readings for ENGL 470)

Tar Baby

1) The Tar Baby story and its variations

2) Colonization of the Caribbean by white settlers, planters, sugar industry

3) Environmental destruction caused by colonization in the Caribbean; effects of contemporary capitalism on the environment and inhabitants of the Caribbean

Beloved

1) The Margaret Garner story

2) the Fugitive Slave Law

3) the Underground Railroad

4) slave rebellions in the U.S.

5) a presentation on The Black Book compiled by Middleton Harris, et al. (edited by Toni Morrison)--particularly on the history of slavery and emancipation in that book

Jazz

1) the "Great Migration" from the South to northern cities, particularly Harlem, prior to and including the 1920s

2) Harlem in the 20s—the Harlem Renaissance

3) the East St. Louis attacks by whites upon the Black community and protests in Harlem and D.C. against this violence.; the “silent parade” in protest of violence against Blacks.

4) Madame C.J. Walker's entrepreneurial, activist, and philanthropic work; her creation of a beauty culture and hair product industry for African-American women, controlled by African-American women, and providing job training, jobs, and income for African-American women

5) jazz, the stylistic and formal qualities of jazz music, especially early jazz (use some examples)

6) the blues--just what is it and what experience does it articulate (use some examples of the blues prior to and up through the 1920s)

Paradise

1) the migration of Blacks westward after emancipation into Kansas, Oklahoma and elsewhere; homesteading of Blacks; Black towns and communities in the West

2) the gnostic gospels especially their stories of female Christian gods (use Elaine Pagel's book by that name. You can get it from interlibrary loan)

3) Candomble (an Afro-Brazilian non-western, femino-centric religion and spiritual cosmology)