099L, Fall 2006
Unit 5 Group Activity, Due: Nov. 2
1. Together with your group, you will first choose an academic lecture offered
through the University of California at Berkeley to work with. These are freely
available online at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses/, and you can also find a
link to this page on our WebCT course. I would recommend picking a lecture
that’s in your field of interest or your academic field. Some of these lectures are
long—remember, they are lectures given in real classes, so they will likely be an
hour or longer. However, since you’re in a group you can easily split this up. For
example, each person could analyze 15 minutes of the lecture.
2. After you’ve chosen the lecture, I’d like your group to listen to it and then draw
up a microstructure outline of the lecture by listing the lecturer’s goals, similar
to the list on page 52. While you’re outlining the lecture, I want you to come up
with at least one example of how the lecturer is meeting his/her goals. For
example, say your list looks like this:
 Defining a Term
 Listing Subtopics
 Exemplifying a topic
 Comparing and Contrasting
You need to also identify how you know the lecturer is defining a term. What does
he/she do? To do this, you’ll add to your list so it looks more like this:
Goal
Example
Defining a Term
Asks a rhetorical question. “What do I
mean by rhetorical?”
Listing Subtopics
Signals a list: “There are eight principles in
this model of education. First, …”
Exemplifying a topic
Uses a signal phrase: “For example, …”
Comparing and Contrasting
Uses a signal phrase: “On the one hand…”
3. Once you’ve made your list, then prepare a short (5-10 minute) presentation
where you summarize your lecture and your group’s findings. If you’d like to
make a PowerPoint, a podcast, overheads, or anything else that you may need
help with, please don’t hesitate to ask!