ENG 112: Prof. Kerrigan
Oral Presentations – Poetry Analysis
Ø This speech will be graded by the instructor according to the Evaluation Criteria
Ø This speech should be 5-7 minutes in length. No visual aids are permitted.
Ø An outline and bibliography must also be submitted when you present (bring two
copies to class – one for yourself to use, the other for me to use). This is worth an
additional 25 points on top of the 50 points earned for your actual presentation.
Ø These speeches will be held on Wednesday, November 12, Friday, November
14, Monday, November 17, and Wednesday, November 19. We will draft our
order of presentations in advance; everyone is expected to be prepared on the
first day of presentations. Makeups will only be allowed for excused absences
(valid medical/emergency reasons) that are communicated in advance;
students who are unprepared or absent when we get to their number will be
first up the next day of presentations and will be assessed a 10% penalty to
their grade. Wednesday, November 19 is the final day for presentations. You
are expected to be present and be prepared each day of presentations.
Assignment: Present a three-part presentation:
1) a brief biography of the poet, (approx. 1 ½ - 2 minutes)
2) read a poem of his/hers, and (approx. 1 minute – times will vary)
3) offer an analytical perspective of the selected poem. (approx. 2 - 3 minutes)
Outside research is required. Use the poetry criticism databases available through the
library. If you use open-internet sources, make sure that they are credible.
Since this is an oral presentation and not a paper – you will submit an outline of the ideas
you will cover (do NOT turn in a paper), and a bibliography (list the sources you used in
proper MLA formatting). These items must be typed and submitted in hard-copy on
Wednesday, November 12.
We will select the poems, and the order of presentations in class on Friday, October 31.
You will gain one full class period (Monday, November 10) as a work day.
The Impact:
Per the course syllabus, your presentation is worth 10% of your final grade.
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Remember when presenting your speech:
ü Stay within the time guidelines
ü Speak loudly and clearly (so that everyone can hear and understand you)
ü Don’t read verbatim from your notes
ü Maintain eye contact with your audience (and look around the room at different
audience members, don’t ignore a section of the audience)
Remember when others are presenting:
ü Show common courtesy and respect
ü Do not fall asleep, work on other assignments, make rude comments, noises, etc.
ü Do not get up and leave the room or enter the room
ü Keep all cell phones off and away
ü Poets and Poem Combos Available to Select:
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Poem
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
“I Felt a Funeral in my Brain”
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society”
“Success is Counted Sweetest”
Robert Frost
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
“Desert Places”
“Birches”
“After Apple Picking”
Thomas Hardy
“The Man He Killed”
“Channel Firing”
William Shakespeare “Sonnet 55”
“Sonnet 130”
“Sonnet 18”
William Wordsworth “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above…”
“Daffodils”
“The Solitary Reaper”
William Blake
“The Lamb”
“The Tyger”
Robert Burns
“A Red, Red Rose”
Lewis Carroll
“Jabberwocky”
E.E. Cummings
“next to of course god America I”
“anyone lived in a pretty how town”
John Donne
“Holy Sonnet 14”
“A Valediction”
“Holy Sonnet 10”
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Page in text
545
811
815
815
548
741
844
843
548
617
555
628
663
557
595
710
581
647
648
581
584
895
585
649
897
A.E. Housman
Edwin Arlington
Robinson
Theordore Roethke
Elizabeth Barrett
Browning
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
T.S. Eliot
“To an athlete dying young”
“When I was one-and-twenty”
585
913
“Richard Cory”
“Dolor”
“My Papa’s Waltz”
“The Waking”
590
591
706
751
“Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 14” 611
“Sonnets from the Portuguese, Number 43” 892
“Kubla Kahn”
“Preludes”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Gerard Manley
Hopkins
Ezra Pound
“Spring”
“In a Station of the Metro”
“A Girl”
John Keats
“To Autumn”
“Ode to a Nightingale”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Walt Whitman
“Facing West from California’s Shores”
“I Hear America Singing”
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
Robert Browning
“My Last Duchess”
Langston Hughes
“Theme for English B”
“Harlem”
“The Weary Blues”
Sharon Olds
“The Planned Child”
Robert Pinsky
“Dying”
William Butler Yeats “When You are Old”
“The Second Coming”
Dylan Thomas
“Do Not Go Gentle Into the Good Night”
Andrew Marvell
“To His Coy Mistress”
Sylvia Plath
“Daddy”
“Mirror”
Amy Lowell
“Patterns”
Alfred Lord Tennyson“Break, Break, Break”
Countee Cullen
“Yet Do I Marvel”
Elizabeth Bishop
“Sestina”
Bob Dylan
“The Times They Are a-Changin”
Edna St. Vincent
“Travel”
Millay
Dorothy Parker
“Afternoon”
Adrienne Rich
“Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”
“Living in Sin”
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612
613
900
620
627
933
654
745
914
667
949
730
892
861
856
862
702
703
713
792
752
784
870
877
921
664
692
737
899
924
928
934
934
Student Name:
Speech Topic:
Grading Criteria for Speeches
Each of the following 10 points will be graded on a 5 point scale (5 being excellent) –
making your speech worth a total of 50 points (so to translate to a percentage grade,
double the number).
1.
Extemporaneous versus read. Was the speech extemporaneous or read
verbatim? Did the mode of delivery seem effective?
2.
Volume. Was the speaker loud enough? Or too loud?
3.
Pace. Was the speech given at the proper speed?
4.
Articulation. Were the words clearly enunciated?
5.
Audience Awareness. Did the speaker code-shift appropriately for the
audience and situation? Were you able to understand what the speaker said?
Did the speaker’s comments seem to reach out to the audience and include its
members? Was the speech formal enough for a classroom presentation?
6.
Body language.
a. Posture. Did the speaker hold him/herself in a way which seemed poised,
relaxed, and confident? Or if the speaker had some other affect, such as
tense, or excited, or angry, etc., did that style seem appropriate to the
occasion?
b. Gestures. Did the speaker use any hand gestures? Were they helpful or
distracting?
7.
Eye contact with the audience. Did the speaker look at the audience?
8.
Organization of speech. Was the speech put together in a logical order?
9.
Evidence of Preparation. Was it evident that the speaker was adequately
prepared? Was the speech within the time guidelines?
10.
Content. Was it clear that the speaker understood the material? Did the
speaker cover major ideas?
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