Abstract: Almost Ready for the Conference

We are almost ready to begin the conference--only three days away! Things have surprisingly been pretty slow probably due to the fact that we have all been working so hard for the past three months on this conference, and everything seems to be in order. I received an email from plenary session leader, and she wished to receive an abstract and a bibliography in order to introduce my presentation.
Unfortunately, I realized that my audience is much, much more different, and now, I am forced to take another direction with my presentation. The first presentation on my research was in my capstone class: the assignment was to present on something that we felt like presenting on. For maybe half of the presentation, I read excerpts from my research paper which was on Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Bean Trees. I looked at identity and how the main character, Missy, wanted to get away from her rural surroundings. However, like I said, I am going to have to change my presentation somewhat. I feel that my audience is going to be different and they really won't find any relevance for me analyzing a book. Therefore, I am going to present on out-migration in West Virginia and use an idea of a "fossil" which in this case acts as a negative thing that sticks in someone's mind and changes other ideas that come their way. I am re-writing much of my presentation and I will be briefly describing what I started researching to get to what I am presenting on now. First, I introduce myself and then talk about the problem of youth out-migration, what a fossil is, how it works, some of the "fossils" that we get like the media calling us hillbillies, rednecks, etc., and then talk about what this does to our mentalities. I think that this approach will be much more effective in touching someone's life.