Presentations of Progress

Finally, we have reached the week of final presentations! Something I wanted to highlight from the beginning of this week’s presentations is the progress each person has made with their public speaking ability. Throughout the process of the World War 2 letter presentations a lot of the tag feedback I was writing included input on how to make more eye contact or engage more with the people they are speaking to. This is because prior to attending Muhlenberg I took multiple public speaking-based classes, which focused heavily on just talking to a classroom of people and how this is done effectively. In this course, I focused heavily on ensuring I spoke clearly and slowly while keeping eye contact with people to make them want to listen to me talk, which is really important in a situation like we are in with having to watch so many presentations. Therefore, it is a necessity that each student tries to make their presentation memorable and making sure the time does not drag on for the audience who is watching almost 10 other presentations. Each of my peers has made such an improvement in this area of presentation with these final presentations, and it really is impressive to watch. For example, Molly was our first presenter for this project, as soon as she got to the front she had this confidence and clarity about her that made me want to sit and listen to everything she had to say. This was true for Michaelah as well. When she began talking about her topic of letters with illustrations she even got out from behind the lectern to point and explain a drawing of a map that was attached to a letter. Her doing that made it much easier for the audience to understand what she was explaining from the letter and it gave a chance for more audience eye contact and engagement. Finally, I wanted to also touch upon the confidence and growth that came along with the quality of words as well. Marc used so many phrases to make the information he shared more casual, but also easy to understand. For example, he used the phrase “the straw that breaks the camel’s back” to describe the final prominent part of a letter in an eminem song. This portrayed a lot of strength and confidence in what he was speaking about to the point where he could get a little more casual and expansive on the language he was using in the presentation. All in all, I was extremely impressed in the quality of speaking and movement that was executed in these presentations, and I hope that others can see that in me as well.