Digital Presentation: Arguing a Position

So remember how I told you not to take a side in an argument about your research ? To save it for later? 

It’s later. 

For the final assignment for ENG 111, using your same topic and resources from your 2, generate a digital presentation  of at least nine slides that takes a side on an opinion associated with your topic and use your sources to defend your opinion.  You will still be responsible for MLA in-text citation and a works cited slide at the end. 

Let’s take the case of a student a few students in different scenarios for the research. 

• We’ll call the first one Maia. Maia did her research about travel nursing. Maia may want to suggest that travel nursing is not a career that would be good for a single mother with school-aged children. 
• Maia’s friend Katie also did her research about travel nursing, but she is wondering if travel nursing is a good idea right now in the age of COVID-19. How can Katie stay safe? 
• Katie broke up with her boyfriend Cameron recently because he refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Cameron said he was overwhelmed about which vaccine to take, but why should he? He’s just turned 18. 18-year-olds can’t die from COVID, can they?
• Cameron’s best friend Ben just can’t wait to go on another mission trip to Costa Rica as soon as COVID is done. Ben found out while doing his research that it’s recommended he not go to Costa Rica due to increased crime. Why has crime gotten bad in Costa Rica?
• Ben’s girlfriend Carly wants to study sociology, so she did hers about enculturation. She found out enculturation means patterns of culture are obtained and transmitted, while acculturation means adapting to the culture. She has always wondered if substandard English is a result of enculturation or acculturation. 

Notice how all of these scenarios ended with an open-ended question. 

• Maia could use the resources she found about travel nursing to see if they address how children of travel nurses would be accommodated. 
• Katie could use her resources to see how travel nurses are protected against COVID-19. 
• Cameron could use his resources to see which, if any COVID-19 vaccine has been effectively used on 18-year-olds. 
• Ben could use his resources to find out why crime has increased in Costa Rica and what he could do to protect himself when he does get to go back. 
• Carly uses her sources to decide that substandard English patterns are a result of acculturation. 

Maia, Katie, Cameron, Ben, and Carly all used the same sources for their research and final presentation because they didn’t have to find a new topic and their works cited was already done.

One more scenario for you: Carly’s friend Chloe did her research about cognitive heuristics, but she doesn’t want to do that again. Chloe’s friend Jason did his report about the Bahamas, and he thinks reporting about pirates or the environment is hokey.  They don’t have to “recycle” their topic if they are willing to do all the research for a new topic. 

But if  they’re not, they should probably e-mail their English teacher with help in finding a related topic to what they already have. 

Got it? Let me know if you don’t!