Group Presentation Reflection

We decided, from the beginning, to do our presentation on Structuralism instead of Formalism—as we where to choose between the two. This decision came about through some convincing by Francesca and myself. The two of us had some past experiences with Structuralism while none of us had any formal instruction on Formalism. The convincing did not take long, and there was no dissent. One of the main reasons we chose Structuralism was because I had an idea for a game to help the class better understand the somewhat confusing terms ‘signified,’ ‘signifier,’ ‘sign.’ While I came up with the basic structure and technicalities of the game/exercise, the finished product is surely a group effort. Each member of the group (myself included) sent images and words that correlated; creating the pieces necessary for the game once they were printed out. For the presentation I did my best to disambiguate the terms, and I provided some quotes from readings I’d done in the past that where not available in the Rivkin text. The group seemed to work well together; we used the time last Wednesday the 17^th (when there was no class) to meet face to face and divvy-up the work load, all else was sent through email. This is being written before the class took place, so I don’t know how everything will wind up going, but I assume it will go well.