Activities to engage students in reading and analyzing newspaper articles for international and local current events.
Newspapers are invaluable in learning about the world on a local and international level. Each day thousands of articles are written world wide to inform the public. Often the articles are manipulated to catch the readers’ attention and information is skewed to sell papers or to fuel the paper’s own agenda.
Teaching students how to read and interpret a newspaper article is a valuable skill. Articles in a paper may or may not represent all of the facts and may be written subjectively rather than objectively as we all have opinions. An article may be compared to giving directions; there is more than one way to get to a single destination.
Goals
- encourage students to read newspapers and to watch local and world news reports
- develop vocabulary
- expand critical thinking skills
- forming opinions
- build up their writing ability
Current Events Lesson Plan
Introduction: Teacher cuts out article headings and asks students what the articles are regarding. Once the class has a short discussion on the different article titles, the teacher will give a brief summary of each article.
1st Activity: Teacher assigns each group in the class an article headline (See tip). The students must write a short summary based on the heading. Each group presents their theory about the newspaper article. Addition to the activity is for students to draw a picture to accompany the article.
After all students have presented the teacher will read the original article. Students will discuss how one article can create many different or similar variations from the same event.
Tip: Choose the same article from different newspapers. The headlines will be different but the summary of the story should be similar. Another option is for the teacher to create his own headlines for the same article.
Bulletin Board Idea: Article heading in big bold letters with the original or fake stories. A question such as Can you guess the original article? can be at the bottom of the bulletin board.
2nd Activity: Identify the who, what, where, when, how, and why. At first the students answers the questions with a simple one sentence answer. Secondly, they write a summary with the key points from the article.
3rd Activity: Create a cartoon for a current event article. A student draws the cartoon and adds a caption to depict the issue.
4th Activity: Rewrite the article from a different viewpoint. If the article is written via the victim’s viewpoint, how would it spin if written from the assailants view?
5th Activity: Debates on an issue. Students must take a stand in regards to a current event issue. Parameters will be set in place for students to begin a discussion about a variety of subjects; recycling, same sex marriages, divorce and much more.
6th Activity: Teacher writes several numbers from the newspaper on the board. Student’s decide what each number represents. A number 1 is insignificant if talking about the price hikes in an airline ticket but is shattering to represent a missing child. Great discussions about numbers can form with this activity.
Add variety to the news stories students are reading. Some students may choose to only read the sports section while others are fixated on the local news of criminal activity.
Types of Current Events
- Economic Current Event
- Entertainment Current Event
- Environmental Current Event
- History Current Event
- International Current Event
- Local Current Event
- Medical Current Event
- Music Current Event
- Political Current Event
- Religious Current Event
- Scientific Current Event
- Sports Current Event
- Technology Current Event
- Weather Current Event
- World Current Event
