Effective Lecturing

How much do you need to know about your topic?
More than the students. Not necessarily everything.
Sometimes it is useful to teach a poem or short story which you have not previously read. You can then show the students how much can be drawn out of something even when starting from scratch.
You may forget it, but you already know more than they do. You can give them context that is not natural to them but which is to you.
SparkNotes, MagillOnLiterature, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Wikipedia are as much your friends as they are your students.
Remember that sometimes students just need to hear the basics. In a survey, you’re going broad and shallow. More depth comes with narrower topics, but in those cases, you’re probably already doing the extra reading.
If you’re teaching in your area of expertise, you already did this reading for exams. If the novel (or whatever) is new to you, it’s because YOU chose it and wanted to read it. You still know the literature around it.

Preparation ahead of time
Expect to spend at least 3 times as long preparing a lecture as delivering.
Always have more notes and ideas than you can possibly present. It will make the lecture richer as you try to pack more in, and you always have a quotation or an idea prepared for a question from out of left field.
Do some time triage. This is a skill that comes with experience. New teachers, especially, overprepare. As stated above, too much is good. But way too much is not so good. It takes you away from your own work.
Be sure to re-read the text before you teach it.
Don’t let your lesson plans and lecture notes become a method of procrastinating on your own work.
Ask your friends or teachers you admire if they have any notes (assignments, lesson plans, powerpoint presentations, web resources, etc.) they can give you.
If it’s a difficult topic (because of race, gender, violence, etc.) consider speaking to a more experienced instructor who has taught the same or similar material before so that you have some idea how students will react. Also, how to defuse the situation if it gets rough.

Delivery
Consider looking at the Writing Center’s handouts or the Oral Communications programs materials. Whichever writing textbook you have probably also has a section on this topic.
Look at how you’ve graded students in speeches. What irked you? What did students do well? Remember the lessons you’ve taught them.
Don’t condescend to your students, and don’t assume that you’re an expert. Allow interruptions and questions. Otherwise, a student’s brilliant point may be forgotten before you get to question/answer/discussion time.
Use some sort of visual medium to reinforce your points. Some students (as you know) are visual learners, and some are auditory learners. Support both groups.
Get enough sleep. Drink water. Don’t sway. Don’t pace. Don’t do that annoying thing where you do backflips across the classroom while clucking your tongue against the roof of your mouth. You know your own annoying habits, so avoid them.
Go slower than you think you should.
Try to explain concepts in multiple ways. Don’t assume that your students know the difference between synechdoche and metonymy already just because you mentioned them in passing three weeks ago.
Try to be enthusiastic. Students respond well to energy…even if it’s occasionally fake.
Stop and ask questions every now and then. Try not to drone on too long.

Technology
In computer-equipped classrooms, you can use projection to post discussion points, quiz questions, the lesson plan for the day, pictures, instructions for an activity, movie clips, etc.
If you’re not in an equipped classroom, you can still check out a classroom-in-a-bag from SITES, the department, or Instructional Support. Figure these things out ahead of time.
NEVER count on the technology to work. Always have a backup plan in case you have to go low-tech.
Powerpoint is fine, but it can be annoying if your fonts are too small, your contrast too low, the bulb too dim, or the animations too distracting. Just be careful and think about what kind of lecture you’d like. The Oral Communications Program and the St. Martin’s Handbook both have some good materials on this subject.
Students (and we are them) are like ferrets. They like shiny things. Impress them.
Leave the lights at least half on if possible. Students are sleep-deprived, and classes are frequently in the afternoon just after lunch. They can hardly be held responsible for falling asleep (even in your amazing lecture on Middlemarch!).

Handouts and other paraphernalia
Brevity is the soul of wit. It is also memorizable.
Consider putting things online and asking students to print out in advance or to consult later. Your copy budget is limited.
Bringing in rare books, scheduling tours of the rare books collection, the Ackland, showing personal photos of important literary sites, having web pages to consult, playing music inspired by certain poems, showing clips of movie adaptations, and so on all help bring the subjects alive.
Decide ahead of time if you want them taking notes. On your handout? In their notebooks? Be explicit and emphasize which aspects they absolutely must get.
Consider giving students an abbreviated form of the lecture in note format. Maybe an outline.

After the lecture
If you used Powerpoint, consider posting your presentation to the web.
You might ask students to post their notes from the lecture in an online forum.
Be sure to ask follow-up questions to determine how well (or if) students actually synthesized your major content points.
Maybe have the students split into groups to discuss and then ask you questions about what confused them.
Return to the topics that you thought were most important on the next class day so that the lecture does not remain an isolated event (like a meteor storm that students should just dodge).