Individual Presentation to Reading Group

Individual Presentation
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Professor
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Individual Presentation
Ben Lerner shares his experiences while he was still a high school debater. The topic appears clichéd, making it one that is rather tricky to handle. However, he manages to do a great job with it. He points out his career in high school as a debater of great extemporary skill. He also points out the essence of separating policies and values in high school debating sessions. He brings out the connection between the separation and its influences on most of Americans, particularly in terms of political thinking. The author had different experiences that enhanced his speech and they included weekend rap battles and poetry on top of the debating sessions in high school. In his experiences, he realized the importance of the figurative aspects of poetry such as rhythm and form. He also understood the connection between the stylistic devices and the development of content. He goes on to compare policy debate to unrehearsed debates. His findings are that policy debates heavily rely on evidentiary findings and proven facts. Whereas the unrehearsed debate sessions depend on the improvisations by the debaters. His explanations shed a lot of light on the impacts of extemporary debating on high school students by focusing on his experiences.
He sheds light on how to go about such a clichéd topic with relative ease. There are many high school students who participate in debates yearly around the world. This aspect makes writing an essay regarding high school debating a tricky choice to make. Many questions arise regarding whether the essay is likely to get the desirable audience. The author manages to stand out in the topic as he shares a critique of his perceptions while living the moment at the same time within the essay. A good example of a time he lives the moment is when he writes, “I remember trying combinations on the main hall lockers and touching a wrestling state-championship banner in the cafeteria with the distance of an anthropologist or a ghost,” that brings out life in the story (Lerner, 2012).
Discussion Questions
1 What preparations should one make before writing a memoir, and how should you organize your thoughts?
2 How can you make your ideas flow in such a way that they maintain the reader’s attention, moving the reader’s thoughts from one point to another?
3 How would you apply the elements of suspense in your memoir, and what effects would you like the suspense to have on the readers and your future writing expeditions?
Personal Take
Preparations
Before sharing an experience, it is important to note that there are people with similar experiences, but the uniqueness of each experience stands out, separating them from each other. For instance, if one is to write about the state track meet, several questions should come to mind that focus on the personal thoughts about the race, the actual questions that were running in the mind of the particular racer, how the racer prepared for the race, and the psychological state of the racer. The aspects mentioned herein can never be the same as they originate from the inner thoughts of all the participating racers differently...