For this assignment, begin by reading about the lecture options presented below. Then prepare the option that you selected from the list. All articles mentioned below have been placed on library reserve. Your presentation should last just about ten minutes, so rehearse ahead of time. Running significantly undertime or overtime (more than one minute either way) will count against you. Teachers should know their materials well enough so that they are not tied to lengthy notes. Confine any notes you use during your lecture to one 3X5 card. Exceeding this limit will hamper your lecture and count against you. Please be considerate of group members' time by being prepared. Practice taping ahead of time on your own is fine, but you may tape each lecture only once in front of your group.
Your lecture will be videotaped so that you can see and hear yourself as others do. You will be asked to evaluate what you have accomplished when you replay your lecture. Linked here is an evaluation sheet. Items must be completed and turned in along with each group's videotape on the date specified in the syllabus.
You will be divided into groups of five. Each member should choose an appropriate topic within his/her textbook chapter, and select one of the options below for preparing and delivering the lecture. Note: in some groups option 3 may not work for any single member within their chapter. If that is the case, two people may double up on another assignment, or, if one person in the group really wants to attempt this option, s/he may choose a topic supported by a museum kit or collection. If the latter, please clear it with me first.
Option 1--Using visual metaphors on the chalk board or poster board to illustrate lectures. Some students who draw well prefer to sketch and label as they go along; others prefer to cut out illustrations and add them as they lecture. To get started read the very brief description in Allen and Burlow, "Making Meaning with a Metaphor" in Social Education, February 1987. The article shows you how you could use the "domino" metaphor on the blackboard or poster. You must, of course, develop your own metaphor. Remember to draw in parts of the metaphor as you use them to illustrate ideas in your lecture.
Option 2--Prepare an introduction to a lesson that is based on an opening statement at press conference with a famous historical character (not a 10-minute q & a with the audience). A modest bit of costuming (perhaps distinctive headgear) must be used. Read Lois Barnes, "Living History," The History Teacher (August 1978) for ideas. NOTE: For this option you should prepare a 10-minute introductory statement, not a question-and-answer session.
Option 3--Prepare a lecture illustrated with artifacts from the University Museum or from a private collection of your own. To get started, read Sandra Myres, "The Use of 3-Dimensional Objects in the Teaching of History," Teaching History (Fall, 1980). If you choose this option, you must go to the Museum quickly to arrange the loan of materials. The staff there has prepared a number of kits for educational loan. NOTE WELL: YOU MUST DO MORE THAN MERELY HOLD UP THE ARTIFACTS AND NAME THEM! Use the artifacts as visual and tactile support to enhance a well-constructed lecture that could reasonably stand on its own without the artifacts.
Option 4--Prepare a lecture that emphasizes two different interpretations of the same historical event. List the facts on the board, on a transparency, or on a poster, and then use the lecture to show how the facts can be interpreted in different ways, putting key words on the board. To get started read Francis McMann, "In Defense of Lecturing," The Social Studies (November 1979).
Option 5--Prepare a first-rate narrative lecture--one that tells a story that illustrates some important theme or event in history by creating vivid word pictures. Your audience should be able to smell, feel, see, and taste the things you talk about. See "I Wish I'd Been There" in American Heritage (December, 1984) for ideas.
Whichever option you choose, remember the basic principles of providing information:
| Determine the basic information--what must students know? Make sure that information is at the center of your lecture without distraction. |
| Organize your information. The organization may take different forms depending on the particular type of lectures, but it should be logically organized with main points clearly identified through restatement, alliteration, repetition, anaphora, or other rhetorical device. Where the type allows, include a graphic organizer. |
| Use the simplest possible language, and define any terms. |
On the day lectures are due, we will break up into 5 different groups and each person will deliver a lecture before 4-5 other group members and a camcorder. Each lecture will be taped, circulated to each group member for viewing and self-evaluation, then turned in for evaluation. With the self-evaluation, also turn in a brief lesson plan that 1) includes 2-3 objectives, 2) outlines the basic information you have identified for presentation, 3) includes a meaningful Dimension 3 follow-up activity which calls on students to use the information you have presented (e.g. a Collins writing prompt, a comparison/contrast, generalization, construction of support, analysis of perspective). Self-evaluations will be due one week after lectures have been delivered.