Description

Presentation Assignment Sheet

Due Date: Presentations will be made in class on October 10.

Purpose: To provide you with an opportunity to apply ethical reasoning skills in examining the

virtues and vices of characters from the TV series Firefly. To assess your public communication

skills in American Sign Language.

Instructions: Prepare a 5-7 minute presentation that examines a particular assigned virtue or

vice as it appears in the TV series Firefly. We will have a lottery in class on September 26 to

determine who takes what virtue or vice and the order of presentations.

Requirements:

Your analysis should include three components of analysis:

1. Identify and define the virtue or vice being displayed by characters in the show. You can use

a dictionary source for your definition or develop your own.

2. Discuss why the trait on display is a virtue or a vice. Use some of the virtue ethics tools and

approaches the philosophers in Battaly’s book have developed.

3. Defend your discussion by citing examples from the show that exhibit this trait as a virtue or

vice.

Your presentation should include at least five examples of your assigned virtue or vice from the

TV series Firefly as displayed by no less than three different characters. For example, if you are

presenting on the vice of cruelty, you need to find at least five times when someone is being

cruel and at least three different people showing cruelty.

Having a wide variety of examples and characters will allow you to present a sophisticated and

multifaceted definition and discussion of your assigned virtue or vice.

You can use techniques such as listing, thesaurus searching, word-webs, etc. that we have used

in class to both explore the nuances of a particular virtue or vice. Also, consider what might be

the extremes or middle balance of your assigned virtue or vice as Aristotle suggests for

identifying virtues and vices.

Also, incorporate at least one reference from what we read from Battaly's book, Virtue that

furthers your argument of why this is a virtue or vice.

This presentation should be accompanied by visuals in PowerPoint, Prezi, or whatever program

you prefer.

Include a properly formatted Works Cited slide at the end and proper  in line" notations such as

(Battaly, 42) or (“Ariel”, Firefly) were using direct quotes or referencing in paraphrase or

summary of events.