Women - My IOP

1.Write a brief descriptive paragraph that summarizes your IOP. Be sure to include the topic, your thesis, and the hook and any visual aids you used.

Women’s role in society is something that shouldn’t be taken advantage of anymore. Women are now lawyers, doctors, teachers, fashion designers, etc. and without them in society, life wouldn’t run so easily. For that reason, I choose to discuss how J.M. Coetzee portrays women in his novel as symbols of sexuality, which they are not supposed to be any longer. In the beginning of my presentation, I started with my hook, a monologue for Lucy, which I wrote, trying to depict and explain how she might have felt after the rape. Since Lucy is one of the main female characters in the novel who is symbolized as a country woman who can be taken advantage of, showing the monologue was a perfect hook. Then, I started with my PowerPoint presentation. There, I discussed the four female figures in Disgrace: Lucy, Melanie, Bev, and Soraya. I explained the character and physical traits of each and how they are used as a symbol of sexuality. I clarified how since Soraya is a woman in the city, is how more of a nerve to stand up for herself and stop her weekly meeting with David. There was Melanie the youthful student, who revives David. Then I discuss Lucy, as a country woman, who men think they can easily take advantage of since they don’t have an important role in hard labor farming, leading to her rape. Bev Shaw’s role was then explained as the one who made David aware that he was a 52-year-old man. Finally I analyzed the significance of two quotes that J.M. Coetzee says in the novel.
I was trying to explain to the students how J.M. Coetzee degrades women in his novel Women have a very important role in society other than satisfying men in bed!

2. In a well-developed paragraph reflect upon the lessons you learned as a result of the IOP process. This process includes the preparation of your presentation, its delivery, and the subsequent reflection you engaged in following the presentation itself.
Through my IOP presentation, I learnt many things. Firstly, procrastination never leads to any good. Secondly, be calm before an important presentation. And third, sleep in necessary before such a presentation.
All through the summer, I kept delaying working on my IOP! I would have rather just sit on my lazy armchair doing nothing, than working on anything for school. At the end of the day, it all came back at me! When we returned to school, the students and I were all compounded with a plethora of work, including the IOP. I started working on it; I had all the quotes I needed to support my argument, a captivating hook, and a progressing PowerPoint presentation. The Saturday before my actual presentation, I found out that Nour was doing the SAME exact topic! I decided to work on a completely different issue, so that the audience would have to hear the same issue twice. So I settled on discussing how J.M Coetzee portrays the women in his novel as symbols of sexuality, which is a topic that I take very personally. I had to search for a lot of evidence from the text, come up with a whole new hook, and make a presentation in less than 48 hours. I worked a lot!!!! I stayed up all Sunday night and Monday morning working on my IOP, not getting any rest. I practiced and rehearsed all night. Then Monday morning was the official IOP. There was a technical problem with my PowerPoint presentation, which lead me to be VERY anxious and nervous. When I started with my presentation, I was very hesitant and worried, even though I had practiced it many times before. When I finished with the presentation, I was relieved! It was obvious that I hadn’t gotten any sleep after the presentation. I couldn’t concentrate in class and I was awfully dizzy!
Overall, I am satisfied with my IOP. Surly, I know I could have done a much better job, but for the time being, it was that bad. While watching the movie, I noticed that that “umm”ed quite a few times in the beginning, but then I was able to continue without much difficulty, explaining my point of view exactly the way I wanted to.