Title: Using Newspapers in the Classroom
1Using Newspapers in the Classroom
- A newspaper is not just for reporting news its
for getting people so mad they will do something
about it. - --Mark Twain
2Why use newspapers?
- Easily adaptable for all ability levels
- Ideal for individualized instruction
- Use for all curriculum areas and grade levels
- Contain practical vocabulary
- Can be marked, pasted, colored, and cut
- Real-world textincreases relevancy
3Why use newspapers?
- They can be used for individual or cooperative
ideas - Give your students a current source of
information - Cost-effective
- Readily obtainable
- To promote a habit of reading
- They are interesting and motivating for students
4Standards
- 4.12.1,4.12.2-analyze text features
- 4.12.3 locate, organize, interpret, synthesize
information - 4.12.4 critique power, logic, reasonableness of
argument - 5.12.4 write summaries or abstracts
- 8.12.1summarize and evaluate communications
- 2.12.3 plan ,monitor and assess comprehension
strategies
5 Newspaper Activities
- My life in Headlines
- Wacky headlines
- Who am I?
- Fact and opinion in the news
- Scavenger Hunt
- Teaching with the classifieds
- More activities than I can tell you about
6My life in headlinesa great beginning of the
year activity
- Before the lesson, make up a collage which gives
personal information about yourself using only
newspaper headlinescomplete headlines, phrases
and individual words. - You should feel comfortable about explaining
anything in your collage to your students. In
addition, you will need a stack of old
newspapers , construction paper, scissors and
glue.
7My life in headlines--2
- Show your students your headline collage and
explain how the words and phrases relate to you
personally. Encourage your students to discover
information about your life by asking you
questions about anything they do not understand. - With glue, paper, and newspaper headlines, your
students will make similar collages containing
information about themselves. - While your students are working on the collages,
circulate about the room dealing with any
vocabulary and language problems. - I find that I get the most productivity out of
this activity if I limit the amount of time that
I allow for collage production.
8My life in headlines--3
- When the time for collage completion is over, ask
students to turn to a partner and explain their
collages. Allow two minutes for each student to
share, and then ask them to find a new partner. - Continue the sharing for a few turns and then ask
the students to display them on the classroom
walls. - This is a non-threatening way to create class
climate, and learn things about your students.
9Wacky Headlines
- Kids make nutritious snacks
- Police help dog bite victim
- Miners refuse to work after death
- Hospital sued by 7 foot doctors
- Panda mating fails veterinarian takes over
- Lung cancer in women mushrooms
- Eye drops off shelf
- Safety experts say school bus passengers should
be belted
10More Wacky Headlines
- Stolen painting found by tree
- Red tape holds up new bridge
- Chef throws his heart into helping feed the needy
- Arson suspect is held in Massachusetts fire
- Local high school dropouts cut in half
- Include your children when baking cookies
- Juvenile court to try shooting defendant
11Activity
- Write one of the ambiguous headlines on the board
Kids make nutritious snacks - Ask your kids to explain the double meaning of
the headline - Ask students how the headline could be rewritten
to make the intended meaning clear - Give students several of the ambiguous headlines
on a handout and ask them to rewrite them as a
group or individual activity - Have students choose one of the ambiguous
headlines, and as a group or individual activity
write a short story based on the amusing,
unintentional meaning. - Ask your students to look for further examples of
ambiguous headlines and share them with the class.
12Who am I?
- This activity is a good one for later in the
year, after the students have formed community,
and feel comfortable sharing more about
themselves. - Give each student a few pages of the newspaper
and ask them to cut out words and phrases which
describe themselves. You can make the task
harder or easier by asking them to find certain
parts of speech or only words from headlines.
13- After each student has found and cut out a
certain number of words, (this activity takes at
least fifty word to be successful) have them form
a picture of their faces using the words. This
activity is really simple, but I have always had
great participation and the students take great
care to create a beautiful face collage using the
words to form eyes, nose, hair etc. Some of them
are really exceptional.
14Fact and opinion in the newspaper
- Students often assume that what they read in the
newspaper is fact. - This activity refines student ability to
distinguish fact from opinion in news reporting. - Point out to students ways in which news
reporters avoid the appearance of personal
opinion or judgment by using qualifying words or
phrases. - These qualifying words include reportedly, was
reported to be, was thought to, allegedly, was
believed, etc.
15- Give each student or pair of students a news
section of the newspaper and ask them to find two
articles which interest them and cut them out. - After they have done this, ask them to read the
articles carefully, looking for qualifying
phrases and words in the articles and
highlighting the sentences which contain opinion.
Again this activity is best when the students
are timed. - As a culminating activity, ask students to share
the article, and read several of the sentences
which they found to contain opinion. - This is a powerful lesson for the students as
they hold up their articles and show how much of
the article is highlighted, reflecting a writers
opinion and not pure fact
16Scavenger Hunt
- Excellent skimming and scanning practice.
- Can be cross-curricular as items sought may be
items referring to any discipline. - Fun, fast and often competitive
- This activity is easily adaptable as you can
change the number and difficulty of items for
individual students
17Can you find.?
- A used Ford for less than 500.00
- A place to hear Irish music
- The oldest person on the obituary page
- A story about a mouse
- A recipe for bouillabaisse
- The price of Iams dog food
- Two places to have your teeth whitened
- What movie is playing at 730 at the cinema 12
- A story about the governor
- A used fiddle for sale
- The score of the football game
- Why Jerry Frenz is angry?
- The interest rate on a new Dodge pickup truck
- The address of the local library
- The time of the AARP meeting
- The publishers name
- Etc.
18Teaching with the classified ads
- Give each your students a task to complete using
the classified ads - 1. You have 1,000 and you must furnish your
apartment. Cut out advertisements which contain
items you need and can afford. Keep a running
total of how much you have spent and how well you
have completed your mission.
19Advertisements
- Ask your students to find ten jobs in the
classified ads and rank them from the most
desirable to the least desirable, with an
explanation for your feelings toward each
occupation. - Ask your students to cut out many unusual items
which are for sale in the classified ads a
player piano, a large parrot cage, an unused
wedding gown, etc. Place these items in a
container and ask each pair of students to choose
three of the items and write a newspaper article
in which the three items appear conspicuously.
20- Describe your ideal house to the students,
describing it in as much detail as you can. Give
your students the classified pages which contain
the ads for houses for sale. Read a few of them
and explain any terms they do not understand.
Pair your students and ask them to describe their
own dream house to their partner, again giving as
much detail as possible. Tell your students to
take notes on their partners description. When
all pairs have finished, each student should read
the classified ads trying to find the closes
possible match to their partners dream house.
When all students have found what they think is
the closest possible match, ask them to show the
advertisement to their partner and explain why
they chose it for them.
21- Tell each of your students to write a list of
three people they would like to buy presents for,
and the reasons why birthday, thank you present,
special occasion. Pair students and ask partners
to exchange lists and tell each other about the
people on their lists, their hobbies, what they
are interested in etc. The listener should take
notes based on the information about each person
on the list. When your students have exchanged
lists and information , each student will choose
presents for their partners list of
people,(money is no object for this exercise) and
then explain why they chose the present that they
did.
22More activities than I can tell you about
- After reading the obituary page and noting the
format, have students write obituaries for
objects that are ready to be gone old tennis
shoes, a bad habit etc. - Read the advice column with your students and
write and answer letters. - Geographyask students to search the newspaper
for stories that illustrate each of the five
themes of geographylocation, place, human
interactions and the environment, movement and
communication, and regions. Display the stories
on a labeled bulletin board.
23- Expand vocabulary --assign each student a letter
of the alphabet and using skimming and scanning
have them find as many words beginning with that
letter as possible, then have them sort them
according to parts of speech. Look for words - with a particular suffix or prefix
- Compound words
- Words in the past, present, and future tenses
- Possessives
- Misspelled
- Similes and metaphors
- Hyperbolesatire etc.
24- Outliningafter teaching the rudiments of
outlining, give the students a newspaper and have
them select an article to read and then outline
the story. - Who, what ,when, where, whyGive each student a
newspaper. Have each select an article. On a
piece of paper have them list the five Ws. Next
to the five Ws have them list the information
from the article that pertains to each.
Encourage them to write the answers in sentence
form.
25- Content discriminationgive your students a page
of the paper and have them highlight good news
in one color and bad news in another. Have
them explain their reasoning to a partner. - Parts of speechSelect two or three parts of
speech and have your students search the paper
for words that match the category. Using
scissors have them cut out the words and glue the
words on a piece of paper according to the part
of speech label.
26- After studying a certain author or topic, ask
students to find articles that pertain to the
topic or which the person in question would like,
hate, be angry about etc. We just studied Thoreau
and our newspaper was filled with articles to
enrage Henry, according to students. - Have your students make a poster, collage or
booklet of what they feel are the most important
items for a week. Instruct them to give reasons
why they included each item.
27- Have students find five advertisements in the
newspaper and ask them to list the products in
order, according to the appeal of the ads.
Distribute a list of propaganda techniques to the
students bandwagon, card stacking, glittering
generalities etc. and have them determine the
propaganda techniques used in each ad and to rate
the effectiveness of the techniques. As a
follow-up ask the students to design their own
ads using one of the propaganda techniques.
28- Have students write found poetry using words
and phrases cut from the paper. I find these
work best if they are given a theme to write on
such as war or the economy.
29Sources for presentation
- Paul Sanderson --Using Newspapers in the
Classroom . 1999 - The Teachers Desk Using Newspapers in the
Classroom. http//www.teachersdesk.org - Education WorldTen Great Activities Teaching
with the Newspaper. http//www.education-world.co
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