Scanning for Information

S1 and S2 language learners practice the skills of predicting and scanning as they examine images and read the script of interviews with two young students.

Need some engaging pre-reading activities that model how to approach informational text? The exercises suggested by this resource ask readers to predict, skim, scan, guess word meaning, identify key words, and more. Great for language...

What is and what will be the role of newspapers in the future? Keeping this essential question in mind, class members use print, electronic, and/or web editions of newspapers, to investigate topics that include financial literary,...

While this focuses on Ancient Rome, the objectives are improved research and information evaluation skills. In one class period, class members narrow their topic, research it, select the best information, log useful sources, and discuss...

Whether you are teaching a newspaper unit in language arts, covering the First Amendment and censorship in social studies, or focusing on writing ethics in journalism, a unit based on the foundations of journalism would be an excellent...

How was Edgar Allan Poe able to create "intriguing, memorable, and lasting literature"? To answer this question, learners analyze the syntax, diction, and characterizations in Poe's poems and short stories and compare the impact of these...

Many informational texts are written as factual, but can your learners determine when an opinion is presented as fact? Have your kids read several articles on the same topic and record the statements that contain either facts or...

Help, I need advice! Use the popular advice columnist Agony Aunt to get your learners to understand the difference between skimming and scanning. Then provide them with questions specific to the article they read, and have them identify...

After analyzing and evaluating news summaries found in the New York Times "Week in Review" section, middle schoolers study the steps for summarizing a news article briefly and accurately. They write two news summaries: one on a newspaper...

How can the rhetorical structure of an editorial help to develop its argument? Use this New York Times editorial to emphasize the importance of structure in a piece of informational text. Adolescent writers then use the editorial as a...