Unit Three: RCL/TED talk
TED talks have recently become a phenomenon in the United Statesand even globally. TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, and Design,” though the subject matter of the talks can range even more broadly than that. Talks given as TED talks are delivered to a live audience and are recorded. Many are posted online where they end up attracting a larger (sometimes much larger) audience. I (Casey) will recommend some TED talks and possibly even show some during a class meeting. You may also visit to ted.com/talks to browse through and view TED talks on your own time.
Once you have seen a few TED talks, you might begin to understand why TED has caught on so quickly. Put simply, they engage the audience. This happens through a combination of two things: 1) offering engaging subject matter through rhetorical invention (choosing topics and arguments that are compelling, surprising, or counter-intuitive), and 2) developing an engaging manner of presentation. TED speakers do not use notes. They look at the audience. They move around the stage. In a word, they perform.
For this assignment, you will develop a short (4-5 minute) TED talk that draws from the research on your paradigm shift paper. You will perform it in front of the class and arrange to have it recorded. Casey may help you with this; some classes might, for example, be held in a one-button recording studio on campus. For this reason, the audience will be smaller than your usual class period. But don’t let that stop you from going big here.
This assignment has two main aims:
- to work on developing a talk from existing research. (This will mean asking yourself what the most compelling or salient point or two of the research is. If you don’t find your paradigm shift paper all that compelling, then you might return to the research to reconceptualize a bit.)
- to perform a talk (as opposed to deliver a speech). (This will mean working on speaking from memory—which is to say memorizing key points and practicing enough so that you are able to stand up and present the points in a connected, coherent, and engaging way. Guess what? One notable TED talk even focuses on such memorization strategies; this talk will be paired with a reading about ancient memory practices as part of our preparation.)