Any ideas for a historical seminar? (1 Viewer)

[Whicanti]

Context:
For an upcoming assessment task we must present a 15 minute seminar on a chosen historical personality. I have chosen Woodrow Wilson as my personality. The topic of the seminar is "Explain the significant events in the life of the personality you have studied".

Issue:
However, as this oral presentation is in a seminar format, i am not sure how i can produce a presentation to suit this criteria. Our Modern teacher stated: This is not a speech. A seminar requires the presenters to involve the audience and have them respond by showing their understanding. Im perfectly fine with the content required, its just that i dont know how to present a seminar. Do i speak casually? How do i involve my audience? Should i move around the classroom and make eye contact with individual classmembers? Should i pace slowly around the classroom? Do i hand out worksheets? Have the class make notes?

 

[strawberrye]

Watch some TED Talks-it will really help you to know what a good 'seminar' or presentation is

 

[MBTMaster]

What a joke, I hate this nonsense. We had to do a podcast for our personality: Leni Riefenstahl. I wish they would stick to just a classic speech, so much more opportunity to show what you know and marks are rewarded for historical accuracy and skill rather than showmanship (if I thought I was good at performances I would have done drama).

It's really weird that they went for a part A style personality question which is far lower order and gives you far less scope. We had to answer a previous part B question which at least gave us more to talk about.

Honestly, seeing as you have 'chosen' to do Wilson, you are being given a part A and are being asked to do such a strange assessment (at 15 minutes a pop the marking could go on for weeks). I have to conclude that your teacher and or history department is inept or new or perhaps both.

I'd start off by doing a timeline, focusing on four or five key events in his life and spending circa 3 minutes on each. Areas in which there are debate, for example the implementation of the League of Nations and certain sections of his 14 Points, you could perhaps put to the class to get their opinion. But that of course assumes you have some relatively switched on classmates (perhaps consider a couple of plants in the audience).

Good Luck, this is a really unique (not in a good way) task.

 

[meDAawesome]

Our school is just making us do a HSC style response for our character study, one 10 marker and one 15 marker.