Oral Performance Assignment

Instructions

As part of your experience with British Literature, you'll complete three brief "performances" for the class. That is, you'll read at the front of the room a complete work or selections from a work to help us hear the piece, and to gain acquaintance with its oral and performance dimensions. You'll also see how performing a piece in fact is always already an interpretation of it. You may pick from any work in our textbooks, but you should choose something which you think will benefit from a live rendering, has rich, spoken, or otherwise interesting sounds or theatrical qualities.

Tips:

1. Make an enlarged copy of the materials you'll read, so that you don't have to "read down" into the page.
2. Mark lines or passages which need extra emphasis; provide special marks for shifts in tone, volume, feeling, etc.
3. Look up definitions and correct pronounciation of unfamiliar words.
4. Feel free to involve the audience in small ways.
   

Late Performances

You may complete a late performance only under these conditions: 1) you must get ample notes from classmates in order to aquire and understand assignment; 2) you must include a note which explains what the assignment is, when it was due, and why it's late; 3) you perform the material no later than a week from its original due date. All conditions must be met.

Evaluation Criteria

• Your performance should not be shorter than 3 minutes.
• You must read slowly, with good voice projection and audience eye contact.
• You should read with understanding and feeling.
• You should include a brief intro., discussing the reasons for your choice, some background on the piece which the class may not know, reasons for your patricular interpretation, and/or any information you deem important to prepare your audience.
• Extra credit goes to performances which make use of props, additional media, or acting skills. Feel free to be as creative and bold as you like here; you don't have to just stand and read. A mixed-media event can bring out buried qualities in a work, or help us to hear/see it in new ways.
• Extra credit alternately or additionally goes to memorized performances, which may be less than 3 minutes (but at least a half-page in length). If in doubt about the length of your choice, see me to discuss.
• Extra credit alternately or additionally goes to performances which show exceptional understand and/or feeling.
  

Total points possible for three performances: 10 (10% of semester total)

#1 = 2 pts.

A = 2
B = 1.75
C = 1.25
D = 1

#2 and #3= 4 pts.

A = 4
B = 3.5
C = 3
D = 2.5

A = All criteria met very well. Performance also includes some extra credit work (see "Evaluation Criteria"), and/or special understanding and feeling or a particularly original interpretation.

B = Most criteria met well and/or some met very well.

C = Most criteria met poorly to adequately, and/or one or two well with most poorly or not at all.

D = Most criteria met poorly, and/or one or two adequately and most not at all.

 

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