National Endowment for the Humanities
Using Historic Digital Newspapers for National History Day
Your learners will take a trip through history as they peruse through historic digitalized newspapers, reading real articles from such historical periods in the United States as the Temperance movement and passage of the Thirteenth...
Curated OER
Working on the Slant
Compare and contrast a major news story from various newspapers. How does the perspective change? Are certain things included in some of the stories and left out of others? Have pupils complete a graphic organizer to compare how...
American Press Institute
Newspapers in Your Life: What’s News Where?
Big news isn't necessarily newsworthy everywhere! How do journalists decide what to cover with so much happening around them? A instructional activity on media literacy examines the factors that affect the media's choice of stories to...
Stanford University
Fort Sumter
The headlines screamed what everyone knew was coming: War! While Fort Sumter was considered the first battle of the Civil War, the engagement played differently in newspapers at the time. Using coverage from Northern and Southern...
Curated OER
The American Press and the
Students read and analyze newspaper accounts of Holocaust-related items in various WWII newspapers. They discuss the physical placement of Holocaust-related news items to other news items in the same paper.
Curated OER
The Reader's Recourse
Students discover the recourse newspapers face for reporting wrong information. After reading an article, they examine the dispute between a pharmaceutical company and the New York Times. They evaluate the roles of the editor and the...
Curated OER
Writing Summaries
Practice summary writing with informational texts. Young readers create summaries after reading magazine articles, newspaper articles, or other forms of informational texts. Readers use the GRASP strategy (read text, write what you...
Media Smarts
The Newspaper Front Page
Hot off the presses! A perfect instructional activity idea for a journalism class or even a language arts class looking to incorporate some informational texts. Young writers analyze the front pages of various newspapers to determine the...
National History Day
Reporting on World War I
Throughout history, newspapers have reported the events of the day as they unfolded. Using primary and secondary sources from World War I, scholars uncover how the American people learned of the events of the War to End All Wars. History...
Newseum
Journalists Code of Ethics
Journalists are supposed to adhere to a Code of Ethics. To determine the degree to which reporters follow this code, individuals select three recent stories with photographs from newspapers, magazines, online news sites, or television...
Curated OER
Newspapers in the Digital Age
Is journalism more or less reliable with the influx of Internet sources? Learners investigate the issues of freedom of speech, journalistic ethics, and social responsibility in the age of Twitter and Facebook. After examining the...
Newseum
Civil Rights News Coverage: Looking Back at Bias
Not all southern newspapers covered the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Young journalists investigate how The Lexington (Ky. Herald-Leader and The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun re-examined their coverage of the movement. After...
Curated OER
All the News That's Fit to Click: Analyzing New York Times Design
Explore the New York Times, online and in print. Partners take the roles of reader and monitor while each peruses the newspaper. Discussion questions compare the online version to a hard copy print edition. Links provide comparison of...
Curated OER
Connecting Immigrants In Black And White
Young scholars explore the many ways that ethnic newspapers help immigrants in the United States stay connected to their cultures and countries of origin. They write articles for ethnic newspapers.
Curated OER
Sounding Off About Impeachment
Help your middle and high schoolers reflect on the responsibility of newspapers to act as a vehicle for 'everyday citizens' to voice their opinions. Then, using an article about the first day of the Senate impeachment trial of President...
Curated OER
Introduction to Canada
Ninth graders investigate the country of Canada by examining their media in this geography lesson. They use the Internet to research Canadian newspapers and analyze a topic covered by both US and Canadian media sources. After comparing...
Newseum
Front Page Photographs: Analyzing Editorial Choices
Frontpage photographs are the focus of four activities that ask young journalists to consider what the images reveal about a newspaper and its community. To begin, groups compare what images different papers from across the country use...
Newseum
Getting to the Source
Reliable news stories are based on facts from reliable sources. Young journalists learn how to evaluate the reliability of news sources by watching a short explainer video. Teams apply their new source-digging skills to a current news...
Newseum
Media Ethics: Fairness Formula Starts With Accuracy
As part of a study of media ethics, young journalists apply a fairness formula to news reports. They look at accuracy, balance, completeness, detachment, and ethics to determine if the reporting is fair.
Newseum
When the News Media Make Mistakes
Mistakes happen. When they happen in news reporting, be it in print or on the internet, journalism ethics requires that the errors be corrected. Young journalists use an Accuracy Checklist to track how news organizations post corrections...
Newseum
Anonymous Sources in Our Daily News
Young journalists search for two examples of news stories, either published or online, that use anonymous or unnamed sources. They then consider the possible motives for why the sources remain unidentified, the types of stories that use...
Curated OER
Sportswriting
Students complete a variety of activities (using the Washington Post Newspaper) that reinforce concepts involved in sports writing.
Curated OER
The Daily Athenian: A Greek Newspaper Project
Young scholars work together to gather information from the internet and print sources about the Ancient Greeks. They discover what everyday life was like in Ancient Greece. They develop a newspaper to share the information they gathered.
Alabama Department of Archives and History
"Scottsboro Boys": A Trial Which Defined an Age
Here's a must-have resource. Whether your focus is racism, the Great Depression, the "Scottsboro Boys" trial, or part of a reading of To Kill A Mockingbird, the information contained in the seven-page packet will save hours of research...