Tag Archives: English

Language Arts 1-5 Maintain the Brain

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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.

Using Drama to Teach English

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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.