After stressing about my TED talk for a couple weeks and frantically searching for information, I believe I delivered a great presentation. I thought that last Tuesday was a crucial day for my semester, as I was able to redeem myself after my disastrous civic artifact speech. While I though that I was effective in my talk, I realize that they were improvements that I could have made.

In my performance, I was able to explain information that was important and relevant to understanding my topic, which was the awareness of concussions in football. The history of my paradigm shift was a vital component of understanding how concussions have changed football, and I believed I relayed this information with clarity. I also thought a strength of my TED talk was my enthusiasm when speaking, indicating my true investment in the topic. I think the presentations that were the most effective were given by those that truly have a passion for their paradigm shift. I love football, and I wanted to portray this love, as well as my father’s through my anecdote, to my audience.

Even with my good performance, there were still areas of improvement that I noticed when I watched the talk back. First, I thought that I talked a little too fast, which may have confused my audience by my quick transitions. Although my talk was around five minutes, I think that slowing down would have helped my cause. I also think that I was quick to rush into the topic of concussions, whereas I should have let the idea develop in the audience before they realized what my purpose was.

My presentation group had many interesting talks, and it was great to see what everyone was interested in. I thought they all did a great job and truly expressed the changes in their topic, even when the room was the hottest thing ever. The presentations that stuck with me were the ones that truly had the audience engaged with creative, but relevant topics. Even though this assignment was the most stressful so far, I believed that it brought out the best qualities of each presenter and displayed their true skills during their TED talks.

I had the pleasure of attending Margaret Atwood’s IAH medal ceremony on Wednesday evening. I was unfamiliar with Atwood’s work entering the ceremony, but after a brief description of her literary work, I was able to understand her true character and writing style.

While Atwood did not touch on her own compelling ideas in the beginning of her time on stage, she offered the audience a glimpse into her short stories, filled with themes of past love and desire. Her plot line of Constance and Gavin illustrates her ability to portray a relationship where the two have gone their separate ways, but have not forgotten about each other. I was surprised by her humor and sexual nature throughout the pieces, further displaying her depth as an author.

During her question and answer session, I was interested in Atwood’s responses, as well as how her humor would come through her personal reflection. One thing I was compelled to hear from her was her explanation of the distinction between speculative fiction and science fiction. She was asked if she would classify her work as science fiction, which she immediately shot down. She claimed that her work fell along the lines of “speculative fiction”, which she defines as fiction where the topics are realistic and have the potential to occur. She rejects her work as science fiction, which is different because of the topics presented are far off in the future, such as aliens and robots. Atwood’s distinction was interesting as I was unaware of a “speculative fiction” genre, which relates to many novels that are published. While Atwood admits that some of her short stories are science fiction, her novels are mostly speculative as she took ideas from common life. Her response was interesting because it opened me up to a new perspective of literature, where the science fiction genre might not be as expansive as I previously thought.

I was also compelled by Atwood’s hope for the future through literature. She describes how her involvement in the Future Library Project, which will help people one hundred years from now experience reading from modern authors. Her indication that books are time capsules into a time and place stuck with me, as she expressed that we can learn about history and culture through the pages of a novel. Atwood stresses that novels today will be useful in the future because of people continuing to read and their ability to understand how our present day world was.

Another compelling idea that Atwood presented during the ceremony was the analogy she presented of her writing process. She compared her process to jumping into a cold lake during the summer, where we second guess ourselves before we take the leap. Her analogy was relatable to me through my summer experiences, but it also resembled her own doubts about writing a piece. She goes on to explain how one might stay in the water for a little but, but eventually come out. This activity mirrors her own of writing and throwing it out because she believes it isn’t good enough. Atwood’s analogy interested me because of how she identifies her own mistakes, which she may identify in her writing after spending a large amount of time on it. This indication of her process spoke to me, expressing that in order to create the best writing possible, you may need to float around in the “water” longer.

Margaret Atwood’s IAH medal ceremony was different than what I expected it to be, but I was pleasantly surprised to see her wit and intellect displayed for the entire audience. This ceremony made me interested in her work, and I hope that her personality will carry through to future generations that read her stories.

Stasis theory is a useful tool when creating an argument, as the questions developed during the initial stages of the topic help guide you towards the greater aspects of, in our case, a controversy. With framing questions that outline what we are trying to prove, we will be able to focus on specific points and evidence that bring a greater understanding of why the controversy has made such an impact in history. The framing questions that we develop for our controversy should be specific, direct, and insightful to ensure that our audience will be able to follow the correlation between the initial points and the evidence and analysis.

The four questions that are incorporated in stasis theory, conjecture, definition, quality, and policy, are vital to the rhetoric of our project, as the controversy is presented on the basis of its existence, severity, and need to reform. These questions will be utilized to effectively interpret the information we research and discover. Our stasis theory may not be the most comprehensive option to solving the controversy, but we will be able to determine the history of the controversy with a clear focus on the effects that it has on society.

If our group was to focus on the controversy surrounding privacy in our nation, we could look to events in history where people have felt their privacy threatened or abused by either the government or other citizens. We could create framing questions focused on how the reaction to these invasions have impacted others and their opinions of maintaining their privacy in an increasing technological society. We would also focus on what aspects of our privacy will be decreased in the future through the rise in social media and documentation of our lives, making it easier than ever to hack into our identities. We will rely on stasis theory during the public controversy project in order to maintain a strong focus on what we are trying to display about the situations at hand that have made our topic so controversial.