2013 Southern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institute

Day Seven Agenda 1.Scribe Report, Breakfast, Browsing 2.Ticket out the Door Review 3.Effective Presentation Tips: Seven Deadly Sins... 4.Where do you stand? Paula Laub & Linda Avendano 5.Taking a stand: Reading and writing argument 6.LUNCH- Response Groups 7.Teaching Demo Workshop Discussion – The debrief process 8.Research Time 9.Silent Share 10.Ticket out the Door

2013 Southern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institute

The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Presentations Adapted from About.com Dr. Joseph Sommerville

The key to success is to make certain your slide show is a visual aid and not a visual distraction.

Deadly Sin #1 Poor use of transitions and sound effects Can be a distraction to your audience Takes focus away from the message Leave the fade-ins, fade-outs, wipes, blinds, dissolves, checkerboards, cuts, covers and splits to Hollywood filmmakers.

Deadly Sin #2 Standard Clipart The widely used clipart included with the Powerpoint program has become a visual cliché. Make certain that you need your graphics to enhance your message.

Deadly Sin #4 Text-Heavy Slides Projected slides are a good medium for depicting an idea graphically or providing an overview. They are a poor medium for detail and reading. Avoid paragraphs, quotations and even complete sentences. Limit your slides to five lines of text and use words and phrases to make your points. The audience will be able to digest and retain key points more easily. Dont use your slides as speakers notes or to simply project an outline of your presentation.

Deadly Sin #5 The Me Paradigm Remember the audience and move the circle from me to we. 12 point font is adequate when the text is in front of you. In a slideshow, aim for a minimum of 32 point font. Take care not to distort your graphics.

Deadly Sin #6 Reading. An oral presentation should focus on interactive speaking and listening, not reading by the speaker or the audience. The demands of spoken and written language differ significantly. Spoken language is shorter, less formal and more direct. Reading text ruins a presentation. A related point has to do with handouts for the audience. One of your goals as a presenter is to capture and hold the audiences attention. If you distribute materials before your presentation, your audience will be reading the handouts rather than listening to you. Often, parts of an effective presentation depend on creating suspense to engage the audience. If the audience can read everything youre going to say, that element is lost.

Deadly Sin #7 Faith in Technology Be prepared by having a back-up of your presentation on a CD-ROM. Better yet is a compact-flash memory card with an adapter for the PCMCIA slot in your notebook. With it, you can still make last- minute changes. Use generic fonts so they dont change on a different system. Be cautious incorporating music or video.

2013 Southern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institute

Questions to Consider: WHAT? What is the authors message? What are the implications? HOW? How does the author use language to communicate the message to her audience? WHY? Why do these strategies succeed at persuading her audience?

2013 Southern Nevada Writing Project Summer Institute

Special Assignment for Wednesday Please bring a piece of writing (a book, an article, a poem, etc.) you read recently that moved you as a reader. The text does not need to be something you used in your classroom. We will be exploring these texts in new ways in an effort to question our assumptions about fiction and nonfiction; narrative writing and argument.

Ticket out the Door: 1.What stood out for you today? 2.What questions or concerns do you have at this point? 3.What book or piece of writing are you considering bringing with you tomorrow?