Once during the semester, each student will review a chapter from an edited collection about the digital humanities. You can choose a chapter from these collections: Digital_Humanities, Debates in the Digital Humanities, Understanding Digital Humanities, Switching Codes, Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities.
Reviews will take the form of a Pecha Kucha presentation - a presentation of 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds (6 minutes and 40 seconds total). For more information on this presentation format, visit PechaKucha.org.
I will help students choose appropriate texts for review, and you should see me for approval before reading the text and preparing your presentation. Your primary task in this presentation is to explain how the argument works and how it relates to the books we are reading as a class. You should not focus your efforts on an evaluation of the argument or on whether or not you disagree with the author. See the grading criteria below for some tips about how to approach these reviews.
When providing feedback on these presentations, I will be looking for the following:
- Does your presentation adequately summarize the text and its argument?
- Do you explain the text's significance, its most important features, and its contributions to a scholarly conversation?
- Have you explained how this text connects with the texts we're reading for this class?
- Have you avoided a discussion of whether or not you disagree with the author? Have you avoided a discussion of flaws or shortcomings in the argument?
- Have you followed the rules of engagement
- Have you paid close attention to the design of your slides? Remember that you should probably use very little text (20 seconds isn't a long time for your audience to read through long lists of bullet points) and make effective use of images.
- Is there evidence that you've practiced the presentation? This presentation doesn't require memorization, but the strict format requires that you rehearse and choreograph your performance.
- Have you followed the Pecha Kucha rules (20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each)
