EngageNY
Grade 9 ELA Module 2, Unit 3, Lesson 1
"True-crime stories, murder mysteries, up-to-the-minute online news reports, and (as always) rumor and innuendo grab our attention faster than any call for justice, human rights, or ceasefires." Or so says Walter Mosley in his Newsweek...
Curated OER
Let's Get the Facts!
Young scholars observe and demonstrate the process of summarization. They discuss the three steps of summarization, then silently read a National Geographic Kids News article. As a class they complete a semantic map of the article, and...
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Honey, I Shrunk the Lids!
Young scholars discover the lightweighting concept used by manufacturers. In this environmental education lesson, students research the reduction of the amount of aluminum used in cans. Young scholars wrap the lesson up by writing a...
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IceHunters: Welcome to the Cryosphere!
Students complete an online exploration mission assigned by their teacher. In this ecology lesson, students write a newspaper article about their polar mission following certain criteria. They create a PowerPoint presentation that they...
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Adjective? What's an Adjective?
Mount a variety of pictures (fantasy, rustic, portraits, action) on large sheets of paper and post them around the classroom. Groups rotate from poster to poster, adding adjectives to describe each of the pictures. Writers use these word...
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Turning Literature into News
Students examine the newspaper. In this writing purposes lesson, students read the newspaper and discuss the purpose: to inform, entertain and persuade. Students identify facts and opinions. Students write an article and discuss acts of...
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Exploratory: News Casting
Students report on an assigned topic in a simulated news story. In this 1960s lesson, students pretend to be a reporter in the 1960s and work in groups to create a news story on an assigned topic having to do with the Civil...
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Ethics and Hazelwood: What Journalists Should and Can Write
Students explore the code of ethics in journalism. In this journalism ethics lesson, students use Hazelwood and Tinker to explore journalism ethics. Students compare ethics of journalists and pirates, read a related article, write their...
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Breaking News English: Apple Suing Samsung
Why is Apple suing Samsung? Give your English language learners a bit of reading comprehension practice. First, they read the short passage provided, and then they complete 10 activities. There are true or false questions, matching...
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Royal Letter for Sale
Students read an article about the sale of a letter written by a 16th century queen, Catherine of Aragon. They define vocabulary, complete comprehension worksheets, analyze the use of parallel form in the article and write a letter of...
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Press-ing Freedom
Students consider how free speech applies to journalistic practices in light of a legal case involving two reporters. They participate in a fishbowl discussion about journalism codes of ethics and write response papers.
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All the News That's Fit to Blog
Students critique three Web logs, each of which offers first-hand accounts, but reflect different points-of-view, on the war in Iraq; students write a response to one of the entries and analyze what they learned about the war from the...
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Reliving History Through Writing
Students read a first hand account of John F. Kennedy's assassination. They write an essay describing how a world or national event affected them.
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Summarizing
Students analyze and summarize the main aspects of a news story. They find the "Who, What, Where, When and Why in a particular news story.In addition, they answer six questions over a particular story and then write a news story from...
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The Weekly News, Part 2
Sixth graders use articles they've previously written to produce a school news broadcast. In this journalism lesson, 6th graders discuss the goals of a news broadcast and use previously written articles to plan a news broadcast. Students...
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Activity 5: Creative Writing/Expression About Child Labor
Middle schoolers research child labor using Internet resources. They present the information in a creative writing piece and post it on Chalkboard.
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Writing Applications: Different Types of Writing and Their Characteristics
Twelfth graders rewrite a story in a different format to understand the effects of the author's style. In this writing style lesson, 12th graders read Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and rewrite the...
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Not Just the Facts
Encourage your learners to explore the differences between hard news and news analysis. They outline a complex news analysis about the upcoming presidential election, then endeavor to write an analysis of the same topic, using local...
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What Was That All About?
Through direct instruction, the teacher demonstrates how to identify the main idea and supporting details of a text when creating a summary. As a class, read a paragraph, highlighting relevant information and crossing out extraneous...
Learning to Live
Attributes of a Civil Society
What makes a society civil? High school freshmen search for examples of justice, kindness, peace, and tolerance in news media and brainstorm how they can promote these attributes in their schools, communities, and world. The well-rounded...
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Spreading the Word
Fourth graders research and discuss the importance of Gail Borden and his printing press to the history of Texas. They write a newspaper article from Gail Borden's viewpoint.
Nemours KidsHealth
Asthma: Grades 6-8
Two activities teach middle schoolers about asthma and how it can affect people's lives. After reading a series of articles and watching two videos that provide background information about asthma, pupils design an interactive game that...
Nemours KidsHealth
Fire Safety: Grades 3-5
Three lessons stress the importance of fire safety. Lesson one presents several articles listing fire safety do's and don'ts; using their newly-found knowledge, learners rewrite a newspaper article about a fire incident so that...
Alabama Department of Archives and History
Alabama's Economic Contribution to the Confederacy
With a presentation and guided questions, help elementary historians understand the role Alabama played in the Confederate economy during the Civil War. The resource concludes with a newspaper article writing assessment.