Ted Talk Reflection

 

     As a yearly wrap-up project for this year’s Contemporary Literature class, Mr. Davidson tasked the whole class to each make a Ted Talk on a topic they believe in or know a lot about. I decided to do “Traditions Are Important” for my topic, mainly because I had recently used my family's tamale making tradition for my Michigan college Essay on communities. However, the process was a lot harder than I initially thought, and I hope that this reflection will help illustrate that journey.  

What I Knew 

Going into this project, the only tradition that really came to my head when I thought about it was my family’s tamale making tradition. So, there wasn’t much to go off in terms of personal experience, but as I had already started this project, I figured that there was some interesting stuff I could find if I did the research. So, I decided to illustrate my point with my family’s tradition, and then supplement it with a lot of things that people do that are actually traditions with an extremely rich and interesting history. As for my family’s tamale making tradition, I already had quite a bit to go off of. Back when I lived in Arizona, we used to have pretty much my whole family over, even people who we didn’t see all that often. Due to the monotonous process of making tamales, with each person doing one thing repeatedly, there isn’t much to do than talk to family members. Because of this, I was able to gain a much better relationship with the members of my family who I didn’t see that often. Through this conversation, I knew a lot more about what was going on in the lives of my extended family members than I would have otherwise. Especially when I was older.  

Why I selected this topic 

I selected this topic in the first place because I didn’t really know what to pick when I was thinking about a good topic to choose. After I thought about it for a second, I realized there was a lot more I wanted to say in my Michigan essay on communities that I could use this project for. So, I decided to go with the importance of Traditions and the way they can help build and strengthen relationships with your family and communities. Over time though, as I did my research and continued to see the history of many different traditions, I found my belief in my topic growing the more I learned. So, by the end of the project when it was time to present, I genuinely believed that this was an “idea worth sharing” and hoped that my classmates, and Mr. Davidson too, would learn a lot more about how Important having a tradition is, and maybe they would start one of their own as well.  

What I learned – Research 

To summarize the experience of researching this topic at the start in one word, I would have to say Challenging would be the only way to describe my experience. At first it was hard to find information that was worth using, as I didn’t really know exactly what I was looking for. And for a moment, it honestly seemed like my research was at a dead end, to the point where I barely had a page of info on the outline check in. But I really believed that my idea was worth sharing, and if I kept doing the research, I would eventually find something that was worth using. Over time, I began to refine my searches for something better suited to find the information I was searching for. And I began to get closer and closer to my plan coming to fruition. Eventually, I found the information and history on quite a few popular traditions that worked perfectly to supplement my idea. By the time I had finished my outline, I realized it was then time to start creating my presentation, which I figured would be a straightforward process since I had finished all the information needed for my presentation, all that was needed was making sure that I could create useful visual aids that wouldn’t detract from my presentation.  

What I learned – Presentation 

As I believed at first, making the presentation proved to be easy and straightforward, and once I figured out how I wanted to present my information, the rest was easy. Using transitions and figuring out how to make my visual aids appear when I wanted to also ended up being easy. The only problem I really ran into was making sure the quality of my visual aids was good. As most of the time, the photos ended up grainy or hard to see, but I eventually figured it out. When I was practicing using both the outline and the presentation, I ended up being surprisingly good at changing the slides and introducing visual aids at the right moment. I wasn’t all that worried about any of the physical parts of the presentation, as I had done quite a few over my time at U of D, and I thought that I had my pacing, tone of voice, and the other parts to being a good speaker down. When the presentation came around, I was surprised at the number of nerves I had, as I hadn’t really had to present an idea that was completely original and my opinion before. Because of that, I noticed that I was going through the presentation a lot quicker than I had expected, and I was also forgetting to change the slides and introduce visual aids, as when I practiced, I had the computer in front of me and could see where the slides were. It turned out that I was going quite a bit faster than when I practiced my presentation, ending up around three minutes less than it did when I practiced. However, I feel like I was comfortable enough towards the end that If I was able to redo the presentation, I would be comfortable enough to deliver a lot more information and make the presentation a lot longer as a result.  

What the Audience learned 

When it comes to the Ted11 goal I decided to address I chose to focus on Changing your perspective. Because there are a ton of things that people do that, they didn’t know were traditions, I felt like I could use that to help illustrate my point that they are all around us. On top of that, I also feel like most people think of something boring and valueless when they think of traditions. And I wanted to change that, because although a lot of traditions are boring, this also helps to give a great medium through which to have a conversation. To do this, I used the research that I had on several different popular traditions and explained the rich history behind a lot of traditions that most people don’t think would have one. When it comes to if my goal to change people's perspective worked, I think that it did. The three reasons I used were to reframe traditions from a boring activity to something that can have a lot of value. And to finish things off, I talked about a lot of popular traditions like pumpkin carving, which everyone has at least done once or twice and that can be traced back to Ireland, where people would carve grotesque faces into turnips to scare away demons. This showed that even things they don’t think about can have a rich history, dating back much longer than they first thought.  

Advice for future students 

After going through this journey of making my own Ted Talk, I feel like I can offer some advice on what to do, and what not to do. First, when finding a topic, you need to find something you believe in, as if not it would be harder to get through the inevitable dead ends you will encounter in your research. I would also say to do some preliminary research on your potential topic to ensure there is enough information to do an 8–10–minute presentation on. When it comes to writing the outline, make sure that although you aren’t writing paragraphs, you introduce your ideas and use your notes to help you remember what it is you want to say, and practice as much as you can. When it comes to presenting, make sure that when you’re practicing, you go over the time you want to get, as, even if you don’t think you will, you will talk much faster than you think you are going to. The last piece of advice I would give to any future students doing this project is to have fun, although it is a school assignment you do get to research something you believe in, so don’t just pick a topic you think would be easy over a topic you will actually enjoy, as I promise you will encounter some dead ends on the way, and if you don’t like your topic, it will get to you a lot more.