Articles:
You may volunteer (first come, first served) to present an article related to one of our class topics(see our signup page). If no-one volunteers, you will be volunteered! About a week before your article is due, you and I will pick an article from the Google News Politics website. I will then announce the chosen article in clas (and add a link to it on our signup page). Article presentations are 10% of your final grade. You get a grade from 1 to 10 for your presentation. Unless your presentation is unusually good or bad, you may assume a grade of 8. Here are some presentation guidelines:

1. Article presentations should be no longer than 10 minutes (so don't waste time!) and should be presented as part of the related debate.

2. Be sure to cover these two essential elements in your presentation:

   • the main point of the article

   • how the article is connected to our current class topic

3. Do not just read from your article—we can do that without you! NOTE: Please do not use any violent or inappropriate images in your presentation.

Debates:
You may also volunteer (first come, first served) to participate in one of our debates (see our signup page). If no-one volunteers, you will be volunteered! Debates last 10 minutes total. There are two sides for each debate topic. Debaters will confer and collectively decide upon 2 issues related to the presentation topic for their debate. You will spend approximately 5 minutes on each topic, including a minute or so to open and close the debate. Like the article presentations, debates are 10% of your final grade. You get a grade from 1 to 10 for your debate. Unless it is unusually good or bad, you may assume a grade of 8. For details on each specific debate, go to this page: Debates.

Advice for both debaters and article presenters:
Be creative! Be provocative! Be unusual! There is an award for the "Most Memorable" presentation for each third of the course (after every four presentations). Winners get one additional point of extra credit added to their final average. A final vote held during finals week ranks the three winners. First place for the course receives an extra four points (for a total of five points) added to their final average. Second place receives an extra two points (for a total of three points) added to their final average. Your only restrictions:

• nothing illegal (there may be room for negotiation here! ;-) )

• nothing dangerous and no violent images (no room for negotiation)

• The more you can grab and hold the class's attention, while still covering the essential elements noted above, the better!

One final note: while only you get credit for your presentation, you may use as many people in your presentation as you wish. You may want to work out an 'I'll -help-you-with-your-article-if-you-help-me-with-mine' deal with others in class.

More extra credit!
If available, I give extra credit to students presenting additional articles or debates. If you participate in additional debate/article presentations, I will add one point to the average of your grades. NOTE: As I mentioned above, we will have presenters for all articles—if no-one volunteers for an article, I will volunteer someone—even if they presented earlier. So some of you may actually have extra credit forced on you (life's rough, isn't it?)

NOTE: If you fail to give your presentation when called upon, you will receive a grade of 0. You may sign up for a later presentation (if available) to replace the 0, but you will not be eligible for any extra credit.