Southern Poverty Law Center
Evaluating Online Sources
All sources are pretty much the same, right? If this is how your class views the sources they use for writing or research projects, present them with a media literacy lesson on smart source evaluation. Groups examine several articles,...
Newspaper Association of America
Community Connections with Geography and the Newspaper
Understanding geography and government begins at the local level. Using maps and the parts of a newspaper, a unit plan introduces the concept of community. It starts with the creation of classroom and school maps, and then moves through...
Teachers Network
Witness for the Prosecution: Online Newspaper
Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution becomes the text for an online newspaper activity. Young journalists craft news, features, obituary, and opinion articles based on the characters and events in the play.
Newseum
Recognizing Bias: Analyzing Context and Execution
Young journalists learn how to identify bias in the news media. First, they watch a video in which a Newseum expert identifies bias in a story about the 1919 Chicago race riots. They then use what they have learned to analyze a recent...
Curated OER
Biographical Activity
Students particpate in discussion about biographies in order to become familiar with the term. They type their "Biography" using a word processing program and learn the cut/paste functions to transfer information from their document into...
Newseum
The Press and the Presidency: Friend or Foe? How the President Is Portrayed
In theory, news reports should be fair and unbiased. Young journalists test this theory by selecting a current news story covered by various media outlets about the President of the United States. They then locate and analyze five...
ESL Kid Stuff
Past Tense Activities - Irregular Verbs: Part 2
The second part of a two-part lesson plan on irregular past tense verbs prompts language learners to add four more verbs to the list of twelve they have been working with.
Crafting Freedom
Creating Original Historical Fiction Using Henry "Box" Brown's Narrative and Runaway Slave Ads
Young historians discover the experiences of runaway slaves after reading the brief biography and narrative excerpt of Henry "Box" Brown, who escaped slavery by having himself shipped away in a crate and popularized his flight in a...
Online Publications
Become a Journalist
Explore the newspaper as a unique entity with a detailed and extended unit. The unit requires learners to consider the newspaper's role in democracy, think about ethics, practice writing and interviewing, and examine advertising and news...
Curated OER
All in a Day's Work
Who is Herman Melville? Read and discuss "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street." Then, discuss the film adaptations of Melville's work and translate a passage of the text into modern-day English. Discussion questions are...
Curated OER
The Learning Network: Re-envisioning Classic Stories
Readers reflect on enjoyable stories they know, brainstorm criteria that make a story "good," analyze a New York Times article about innovative children's performances, re-envision classics on their own, and peer edit drafts. Use this as...
Roald Dahl
Matilda - The Third Miracle
Magnus takes a visit to the classroom in the 20th chapter of Matilda. Or does he? After reading, learners interview the person in the hot seat to get a detailed account of what happened during this chapter. Then, they write individual...
NPR
Journalism Lesson Plan
Honor women in journalism with an online exhibit called Women with a Deadline. Class members demonstrate their understanding of the topic in a final assessment by writing a newspaper article on the information they learned in the online...
American Press Institute
In the Newsroom: The Fairness Formula
Reporting the news is easy, right? Think again! Show young scholars the difficult choices journalists make every day through a instructional activity that includes reading, writing, and discussion elements. Individuals compare the...
Curated OER
Read All About It! Looking at Newspapers.
In this newspaper activity, students read about emotive language, then choose headlines that are most likely to excite a reader, re-write headlines, replacing words with more emotive words, and read a short article and answer 3 related...
Curated OER
ESL Holiday or Vacation Activities Survey
In this ESL holiday or vacation activities survey learning exercise, students ask others if they have or have not done 8 activities. They ask if the students do things such as play football, ice skate, go camping or play basketball.
Curated OER
ESL "Can You...?" Activity Survey Worksheet
In this ESL activity survey learning exercise, students survey classmates to determine who can do the 8 named activities. They write down the name of the student and check yes or no to record if classmates can do things such as cook,...
American Press Institute
Creating a Classroom Newspaper
Hot off the press: a mini-unit for class members to create their own newspaper. Complete with graphic organizers, extension activities, and helpful learning targets that teach parts of a newspaper, the resource contains everything needed...
Energy for Keeps
The Energy Times
Extra! Extra! Read all about past and present energy use in a classroom-made historical newspaper. Useful as a cross-curricular assignment between science, history, and language arts, the project is sure to get young journalists...
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...
Fairfax Public Schools
Walter Dean Myers
If you are reading works by Walter Dean Myers in your class, this resource might be worth a look. Included here are activities and discussion questions for Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary, Somewhere in the Darkness, Scorpions, Fallen...
University of Northern Iowa
Clothing
As part of an investigation of the folk traditions of their area, class members research the articles of clothing worn at earlier times, the fibers and materials, and the machinery used to produce these items. In addition, class members...
Curated OER
Jack-O-Latern Lesson
Have a Happy Halloween and build strong oral language skills. Special needs Pupils functioning at a moderate level can practice sequencing, writing lists, and using oral language by explaining how they carve a pumpkin.