Argument as a Social Practice:
The Academic Conference
CONFERENCE PRESENTATION SERIES
HOW TO PREPARE: Each student will come prepared to give a presentation. Your presentation should use a slideshow OR a printed handout. The professor will then lead a group workshop activity based on the student’s outline. Your slideshow or handout should provide the following five items:
(i) Context: A concise summary of the issue you will treat, referencing exhibit sources where relevant.
(ii) Disrupting Questions: An explanation of the moral significance of the issue at hand, and a clearly articulated guiding question that you will use to frame the problem(s) you will be treating in your paper.
(iii) Argumentative Response: Be prepared to audition an argumentative response for responding to your disrupting question(s). Here you may audition more than one potential argument if you are still deciding between different strategies.
(iv) Dialectical Sensitivity: You should consider at least one diverging perspective and consider how evidence could be used to support this view.
(v) Worries, Concerns, and Challenges: You should come prepared to share 1-3 specific worries, concerns, or challenges you are having as you develop the paper. Help us help you by preparing meaningful and thoughtful requests for help.
SELF-LEGISLATED CLASS EXPECTATIONS
In order to reduce anxiety and foster community, everyone can expect to receive Basic Credit on their Conference Presentation in exchange for meeting the expectations that students have collectively set for the class:
I. CLASS EXPECTATIONS FOR PARTICIPANTS
In order to ensure intellectual responsibility and agency, your classmates have set the following expectations:
1. For each day of the Conference, every student will contribute at least one oral or written comment to class discussion (Minimally, you should contribute one comment per day of the Conference series; Ideally, you would have one comment for each presentation).
2. Comments should be authentic and purposeful, and should not be made to simply fulfill a requirement (No one will be counting comments).
3. Regular attendance at all Conference sessions is expected to ensure engagement.
4. There will be a no laptop policy during the presentation portion of class.
5. Time will be dedicated at the end of end class for students to leave written comments on the digital forum for each student’s presentation; Laptops may be used during this portion of the class
II. CLASS EXPECTATIONS FOR PRESENTERS
1. Begin your presentation by inciting interest in your topic using polls, activities, thought experiments, reflective questions, or other forms of engagement
2. Use thoughtful questions to get buy-in from the class (Don’t ask overly general questions)
3. If your topic is highly specialized (e.g. emerging technologies), you might consider posting supplemental reading materials along with your conference presentation