Class Report Medieval/Renaissance

You must hand me a 3x5 index card with a bibliography of at least 2 books (or scholarly articles--these will be more up-to-date than books), not including your textbook. 2 outside sources is the minimum for a C grade. Encyclopedias and other reference works should not appear as counted sources in a university presentation or essay although they can be cited since you may begin your research using them. Also, you may use props, slides, costumes, acting, food from a period recipe if you want, but the main idea is to get the material across. You will be graded on the material you present, your bibliography, and how well you present your material. If you wish, you can ask others in the class to help with your presentation with the understanding that you will help them with theirs. If you wish to help another person with research (you will submit your own bibliography with at least one book different from those used by the main presenter) you can gain extra credit.

Criteria for Presentation
1. You are to introduce a literary figure that we will be discussing the the following week. Your presentation should focus on how the culture and history of a period combine with factors of gender or class to shape an artist and the piece that he or she is creating.

2. You are to show how history of the period, biography of the writer, and the text are inseparable--they work synthetically to produce a given text.

3. Be aware of how the above factors put constraints on writers or, conversely, provided opportunities. Remember that constraints were not necessarily limited to the "lower classes' or to women. Men writing in the patronage system were limited by the wants, dislikes, and political affiliations of the people for whom they were writing.

4. Try to make the dilemmas of the writers immediate and real for the class. Can you find an analogous situation today that would echo the dilemma that these writers faced?

5. Finally, speak to the issue of how this writer is responding, positively or negatively, to the writers who surround him or her. How is this writer influenced by trends or topics or forms being written by other writers of the time? Can you account for why he or she is responding in this way?
(Questions from Dr. Sally Bishop Shigley.)