Monthly Archives: February 2010

Celebrate NIE Week

Posted on by
Reply

Celebrate Newspapers in Education Week! 

Newspapers In Education Week is celebrated annually during the first full school week of March. For 2010, the NAA Foundation has created a teacher’s guide titled, Critical Thinking Through Core Curriculum: Using Print and Digital Newspapers. The guide is available for download at the bottom of the page.

The teacher’s guide, which is aligned with national learning standards, features a five-subject approach that takes advantage of the wide range of topics covered by newspapers. Topics include financial literacy, nutrition, the environment, character education and information technology. Lessons can be taught individually or as a unit.

The guide provides an opportunity to teach critical thinking through subjects that will be vital to students’ success as adults. In the age of Web sites, blogs and social networking, critical thinking is more important than ever. Everything on the Internet looks authoritative thanks to do-it-yourself templates and software, while blogs, citizen news sites and social networks add to the confusion.

All of these information sources make it ever more important for students to be able to weigh the merits of information, draw comparisons, sift competing interests and make judgments based on the reliability and track records of sources.

Because newspapers cover a wide range of topics, they provide myriad opportunities to develop students’ critical thinking skills in areas that interest them and will affect them for life. 

Download the guide by clicking below: legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/2010_NIEWeek[1].pdf

 

Feeling Accepted

Posted on by
Reply

Feeling Accepted is the last installment of the NIE Teacher’s guide titled Positive Thinking. It was written by Ginny Swinson with educational consultation by Nancy Gilligan and produced by KRP, Inc. 

Previous posts from the Positive Thinking guide on this blog include:                        

8/31/09 – Focusing on the Positives                                                                      

12/19/09 – Getting Rid of the Negatives                                                                

12/21/09 – Energizing your Mind                                                                             

12/22/09 – Expecting the Best                                                                                  

12/25/09 – Finding Happiness                                                                                  

1/5/10 – Fighting Anger                                                                                            

These past entries may be found in the archives of this blog. I have listed the date they were originally posted in case you would like to refer back to them.

Feeling accepted

Feeling accepted is an important aspect of adolescence. A large part of a student’s self esteem hinges on his perception that others like him. The final lesson of this unit focuses on developing those positive qualities that make a person like himself and, in turn, make others like him. Every student has the power to enhance his positive qualities as well as eliminate his negative ones. To be successful in school, in a career, and,ultimately, in life, students need to feel good about themselves.

Everyone wants people to like them and wants to be accepted for who they are. Trouble is, that’s not always easy to accomplish. In fact, you’ll never get EVERYONE to like you. Some people just don’t hit it off. But even the most difficult people and people who are shy and unsociable can win friends and feel accepted — especially if they like themselves. A feeling of self-confidence and a healthy self-esteem go a long way in the quest for acceptance in today’s world.

ACTIVITY I   Work in groups of four to conduct a poll to find out the qualities and attributes people most often look for in other people. On a separate sheet of paper, write down one person from your group for each of the tasks listed below. Then decide on the people or groups of people you will poll and the questions you will ask. Once your poll is completed, draw a bar graph on a separate sheet of paper illustrating your findings. Write a news article for your school or class newspaper explaining the results.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY PEOPLE/GROUP to POLL
Pollster (takes the poll):
Statistician (calculates the results):
Graphic Artist (draws and labels graph):
News Reporter (writes news article):
QUESTIONS TO ASK
 

ACTIVITY II  While there are no universal traits that guarantee you’ll win friends, there are some basic characteristics that will make it easier to feel accepted. Three of those characteristics are:
#1. Be confident in your own abilities (In other words: Like yourself!)
#2. Be a comfortable, easygoing, pleasant person
#3. Have a sincere interest in people
By the same token, there are no universal traits that force people to dislike you. But you can bet that if you are rigid, self-centered, egotistical, and irritable, you will not have an easy time when it comes to making friends. These attitudes work to create natural barriers against building friendships.
 

Divide the class into two groups: movie critics and TV critics. Use newspaper listings to identify movie roles and TV roles in which the characters have trouble making or keeping friends. What are some of the common attitudes these characters display that get in the way of their popularity?  List your responses on a separate sheet of paper. 

 

ACTIVITY III   People will begin to revise their views of you if you take time to talk with them and show an interest in their lives. Here’s one way to do that. At night, before going to bed, picture in your mind each person you have met during the day. As each face comes to mind, think one kind thought about him or her. The more positive things you look for in the people you know, the more positive things you’ll find!
 

It can be a challenge to find admirable or likable qualities in some people. But that shouldn’t stop you from trying. In your newspaper, look for someone you just don’t like (He or she can be fictional — a comic strip character, for example.) You may not know him or her, but you’ve read about or seen this person before. Now, try to find some admirable and likable qualities about this person. Make note of those qualities on a separate sheet of paper. Next, pretend this person is running for “Friend of the Year” and you’ve been hired to design a campaign poster for him or her. On poster board or construction paper, roughly sketch the poster using slogans and other persuasive techniques that feature this person’s positive side.

 

ACTIVITY IV   The qualities that make people likable are often the same qualities that employers are looking for when they hire someone for a job. Strong character traits, such as a good self-image, and, of course, being a positive thinker, all make a difference when it comes time to get a job.
 

Read today’s classified ads and circle five job descriptions that list positive qualities required for jobs. From these five jobs, choose the one you would like the most. How do you measure up to the qualities listed? In the space below, write a business letter to the employer introducing yourself, and convince him or her that you have these and other positive qualities needed for the job.

Language Arts 6-10 Maintain the Brain

Posted on by
Reply

Language Arts Activities 6-10

The following activities are from Newspapers Maintain the Brain: A Teacher’s Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills. The guide was produced by the Newspaper Association of America. Each activity is labeled to indicate approximate grade level. E = elementary, M = middle grades and S = secondary. You will probably find it easy to adapt the lessons to the ability level of your students.

The activities will help students improve their skills in reading and writing. These skills are among the ones they will practice: how to find the main idea, how to increase vocabulary, how to compare readings, how to form sentences, how to ask a good question and how to write a great summary. They will employ many critical thinking skills as they are required to interact with the authentic material found in the newspaper.

ACTIVITY 6 – MONTHLY MAGAZINE (E) (M)

Skill: Student uses a variety of reading materials to develop personal preferences in reading materials and locates and organizes written information. Tell students that they are in charge of planning a cover for an important monthly magazine. They can look through today’s paper for the five articles that they think would be best for their magazine. They will design the cover, including titles that will make people want to read the articles and pictures that will catch their attention.

ACTIVITY 7 – CHAT ROOMS (M) (S)                                                                       

Skill: Student locates, organizes and interprets written information for a variety of purposes. Chat rooms are sites on the Internet where people can have conversations by typing messages that are sent immediately. Teens are now spending hours talking to each other in chat rooms. Have students look through the news in today’s newspaper for a story they might want to share with someone in a chat room. Have them write down exactly what they would say about the story.

ACTIVITY 8 – COMICS AND YOU (E) (M)                                                               

Skill: Student identifies details and uses information to construct meaning and make inferences.  Have students look through the comic strips in today’s newspaper for a character who is most like them. They can make a list of the things they have in common with this comic character as well as the differences.

ACTIVITY 9 – FUN WITH NOUNS (E) (M)                                                              

Skill: Student correctly identifies parts of speech-nouns. Review the definition of a noun with your class. Then have them select a story from the front page of today’s newspaper and find the nouns. They can underline the people they find in red, the places in blue and the things in green. Then make a list of nouns you can find looking around your classroom.

ACTIVITY 10 – PICTURE STORIES (E)                                                                   

Skill: Student organizes ideas and information for creative writing. The goal is to use pictures from the paper to tell a story. This activity gives students a chance to explore how photographs can tell stories. Have students look through the photos in today’s paper. Students then choose three photos and cut them out without captions. They can paste each picture on a separate sheet of paper and staple the sheets together in the order they will appear in the story. Finally, they should write out each story in the form of captions below each picture.

 

Language Arts 1-5 Maintain the Brain

Posted on by
Reply

 

LANGUAGE ARTS ACTIVITIES 1-5

The following activities are from Newspapers Maintain the Brain: A Teacher’s Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills. The guide was produced by the Newspaper Association of America.  Each activity is labeled to indicate approximate grade level. E = elementary, M = middle grades and S = secondary. You will probably find it easy to adapt the lessons to the ability level of your students. 

The activities will help students improve their skills in reading and writing. These skills are among the ones they will practice: how to find the main idea, how to increase vocabulary, how to compare readings, how to form sentences, how to ask a good question and how to write a great summary. They will employ many critical thinking skills as they are required to interact with the authentic material found in the newspaper.
 

ACTIVITY 1 – SPORTSMANSHIP (M)                                                                      

Skill: Student forms his/her own ideas about what has happened in a text and uses specific information from the text to support these ideas. The Institute for International Sports encourages all athletes to be good sports and to play fairly. Have students make a list of the characteristics that a good sport should have. They can use today’s newspaper to find an example of an athlete demonstrating good sportsmanship and explain why they think so.
What athletes are not good sports? Why do they think so?
 

ACTIVITY 2 - FACT OR OPINION (M)                                                                    

Skill: Student determines fact from opinion. What is the difference between a fact and an opinion? Read an editorial from today’s newspaper aloud to your class or allow students to read independently. On the printed copy, have them circle the words or phrases that are facts with a colored marker and underline those that are opinions with a different color marker. Talk about which words show facts and which show opinions. Did they find more facts or opinions?
 

ACTIVITY 3 – PREDICT THE FUTURE (M)                                                             

Skill: Student uses background knowledge to make complex predictions from a reading selection. What do your students think about people who say they can tell fortunes?  Do they think anyone can predict the future? Have them read their horoscopes for today. What does it say about the kind of day they’re going to have? Have them copy the prediction and write a paragraph telling whether or not they believe it and why. Then they can write their own prediction for today. Tomorrow, they can write another paragraph describing the kind of day they actually had. Which prediction was closer to reality?

ACTIVITY 4 – SPORTS GLOSSARY (E)                                                                       

Skill: Student uses a variety of strategies to analyze words. Have students select an article from the Sports section. As they skim the story, they can make a list of vocabulary words that are used in the sport. Then they should write a definition for each word and draw a picture to illustrate what the word means. They can add any other words they can think of that also have to do with the sport, but that do not appear in the article. Now they have a sports glossary!

ACTIVITY 5 – TAKING NOTES (M)(S)                                                                        

Skill: Student uses strategies to clarify meaning such as note taking, summarizing and outlining and can write a grade-level appropriate report. Explain to students that a good way of taking notes is to make an outline of what they are reading by writing down the main points and a few important details. Have them read a news story in today’s newspaper that they think has an interesting topic. They can skim through the article again to find the main idea in each paragraph. On a piece of paper, have them number the ideas. The main idea for the first paragraph would be Number 1, the main idea for the second paragraph, Number 2, etc. They will need to leave space between ideas. Then they can look for the supporting facts in each paragraph and write them below each paragraph’s main idea and label them a, b, c, etc.

Five-Minute Current Events

Posted on by
1


 

Here’s a quick current events activity. Search through the newspaper for the most important stories and photos you see in today’s news. Using only five minutes, scan and skim to pick out the best. Fill in the blanks on a separate piece of paper with the story’s headline and page number.
Find…
1.  A story about your community
2.  A story of national importance
3.  A story of international importance
4.  A photo of somewhere out of state
5.  A photo of something in North Dakota                                                                       6.  A story about someone local
7.  A picture of someone from out-of-town
8.  A story of local importance
9.  A story of importance to your school
10. A story of importance to your parents
11. A story of importance to your friends
12. A sports story about a local team
13. A sports story about a national team
14. The story you think will matter most in 10 years
15. The story you think your children will still talk about
When five minutes is up, stage a classroom debate to come to a consensus about the best answers to questions 14 and 15.

This NiE activity courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Benton County Daily Record, & Northwest Arkansas Times.
 

Using Drama to Teach English

Posted on by
1

Get Your Act Together: Four Separate Ideas Using Drama to Teach English Lessons

1. HARD TALK                                                                                                              Find a photo of a person in today’s newspaper that piques your interest. Paste the photo on a piece of lined paper. Underneath the photo write 10 questions about the subject of the photo or questions you would like to ask the person. Create possible answers for each question. You can be as imaginative as you wish. With a partner, conduct an imaginary interview with the person in the photo, you being the interviewer and your partner playing the role of the person being interviewed. Use the questions and possible responses you drafted earlier. Once you have worked out a possible dialogue, write it out in play script with stage directions.
 

2. Useful Tools
Choose an item from a display ad in today’s edition of the newspaper. Cut it out and paste it on lined paper.Think of three possible settings or activities for your item, and write them under the cutting. With two other classmates and their items, decide on one setting involving the three items you have chosen, and create three characters.Work out a possible storyline involving your three characters and items. Once you have worked out the plot and dialogue, write it out with stage directions in a play script format. Act out your script in front of the class.
 

3. Position Vacant                                                                                               Pretend that one of the characters in a comic strip must be replaced. On lined paper, write a classified ad to fill the position. Be sure your advertisement includes specific personality and physical traits required to fill this position. In pairs, create an imaginary interview with the successful candidate for the position advertised. What sort of questions would a potential cartoonist ask? How would the character behave during the interview? Act out your interview in front of the class.
 

4. Talk Show Issues
As a class, choose a news story about which people have strong views. Brainstorm the ideas and arguments the different factions might hold. Nominate class members to take on the role of talk show hosts and guests. The rest of the class members take on the role of the audience. The talk show host(s) should introduce her/his guests. Continue the activity as a talk show, with the host also fielding questions from the audience.

Lesson was written by Jennifer Ingham, The Royal Gazette, Bermuda and courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Benton County Daily Record, & Northwest Arkansas Times.

Language Arts 11-15 Maintain the Brain

Posted on by
Reply

The following activities are from Newspapers Maintain the Brain: A Teacher’s Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills. The guide was produced by the Newspaper Association of America. Each activity is labeled to indicate approximate grade level. E = elementary, M = middle grades and S = secondary. You will probably find it easy to adapt the lessons to the ability level of your students.

The activities will help students improve their skills in reading and writing. These skills are among the ones they will practice: how to find the main idea, how to increase vocabulary, how to compare readings, how to form sentences, how to ask a good question and how to write a great summary. They will employ many critical thinking skills as they are required to interact with the authentic material found in the newspaper.

 

2010 Winter Olympic Resources & Activities

Posted on by
Reply

In case you missed this blog on Olympic resources last week, here it is again. The games start on February 12.  It’s very exciting, because there are seven athletes with local ties competing in the games.  You will find a list at the end of this blog.

GIVEAWAY …. since snowboarding is one of the offical events at the Winter Games, I am giving away a book called "No Fall Snowboarding."  Enter for your chance to win by sending an email to: slindlauf@gfherald.com and put SNOWBOARDING in the subject line. Deadline is Sunday, 2/14 – 10pm.  I will draw the winner from all entries received on Monday, 2/15. 

Let the games begin….Listed below are a variety of resources for teachers and anyone else who is interested in learning more about this event that takes place once every four years.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Site
Main site features:
When you click on each sport there are sections that provides information About the Sport and Sport Terms. Under More 2010 Information there is an Education Programs section.
www.vancouver2010.com/
www.vancouver2010.com/education-programs/

Olympic School Program
www.olympicschool.ca/

Olympic Museum Resources – These are written for students and provide an overview of important aspects of the Olympics (not focused on the winter games).

The Olympic Games in Antiquity
multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_658.pdf

The Olympic Symbols
multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_1303.pdf

The Olympic Flame and Torch Relay                  multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_655.pdf

Olympic Games Posters
multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_776.pdf

Olympic Movement
multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_670.pdf

Olympic Museum Main Site:
www.olympic.org/en/content/Olympic-Museum/

Western Washington University/Teaching about Canada Resources
www.k12studycanada.org/

www.k12studycanada.org/resources_lesson_plans.asp 

O Canada Supplement
legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/Canada[1].pdf  Note: if you are going to print this pdf, make sure to adjust your print setting to "fit on page". The pdf is bigger than 8.5 x 11 (normal print size.)

INTERACTIVE WEB PAGE ON grandforksherald.com                                             wintergames.ap.org/                                                                                                      A new, interactive Web page, available through GrandForksHerald.com, gives Olympics fans complete access to the winter games without ever leaving home. Leading up to the Vancouver Olympics, look for the latest news headlines, features on local athletes, schedules, photo galleries, and daily polls, among other interactive features. During the Olympics, the site will track medal winners and be the one-stop source for photos and video from the games.
 

Don’t forget to check the Herald throughout the games to see how the athletes with local ties do in their sports.  www.grandforksherald.com/

Watch for:

 

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln

Posted on by
Reply

In celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12, we are pleased to present this Newspapers in Education tab.

February 2009 was the Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The Washington Times and the NIE Institute, along with the History Channel, produced this 15-page Newspapers in Education tab on the life of Lincoln, his challenges and his victories. Primary source material from his major speeches, the Gettysburg Address, 1st & 2nd inaugurations, and the Emancipation Proclamation, are provided. Newspaper activities are included too.

To download a pdf copy, click the link below

legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/ABRAHAM%20LINCOLN.pdf

Note:  if you are going to print this pdf, make sure to adjust your print setting to "fit on page".  The pdf is bigger than 8.5 x 11 (normal print size.)