Welcome back! I hope everyone had a nice holiday break. Here is a calendar with daily lesson plans using the newspaper for the month of January. The calendar is from the NIE Institute.
To download a printable copy, click on the following link: http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/Jan.NIE%20lessonplans.pdf
Here is a guide from the NIE Institute available for download. It is called “Using the Newspaper to Teach Secondary Language Arts.” This 57-page guide provides secondary language arts activities which use the newspaper as the learning resource.
Download the guide by clicking on the following link: http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/Sec-Language-Arts1.pdf
This RTI (response to intervention) guide focuses on phonemic awareness, decoding, fluency, vocabulary development, and comprehension. There are  instructional activities for grades K-12, ESL and Adult Literacy programs.
Key components in the RTI process are the use of research-based, non-fiction, and authentic materials on a variety of levels. Schools and the newspaper realize that literacy efforts needs to be authentic, leveled, motivational, integrated, engaging, and manipulative. For this reason NIE and RTI work well together. The guide was written by Dr. Darla Shaw and published by the NIE Institute.
Click on the following link to download this 124-page guide:Â http://legacy.grandforksherald.com/pdfs/RTIr.pdf
From KRP’s What’s in a Word NIE supplement from the NIE Institute.
A compound word is formed from two or more words or word parts. Words formed with prefixes and suffixes are sometimes called compound words, but the term most often refers to whole-word combinations such as downtown, sorehead, high school, or backseat.
ACTIVITIES
1. Cut out a group of single words from newspaper advertisements. Combine them in various ways to invent compound words.
2. See who can find the most compound words in today’s newspaper headlines. For an added challenge, set a time limit of 2-5 minutes.
3. Pick any compound word from today’s newspaper and use your dictionary to look up the origins of the root words involved. Be prepared to share your findings with the class.
WHERE DO WORDS COME FROM? English is related to a large group of other languages, including Spanish, French, Latin, and German. Thousands of years ago, Europeans living in one area shared a common language. They began to develop separate languages after they migrated to different areas. English developed out of the German spoken by fifth-century Anglo-Saxons who settled in England. They called their language Englisc. Today, we call it Old English. It developed over time into modern English, borrowing words from many other languages (including those closely related to it) along the way.
Language is borrowed from the Old French word langue (“tongue,” “language”), in turn borrowed from the Latin lingua (“tongue”). What other words can you think of that might be related to language? Hint: Think “pasta.” Verify your guess by checking the dictionary.
WHERE HAVE ALL THE OLDE WORDS GONE? Most Old English words have disappeared, but not all. Of the 100 most commonly used words in our language, all are Old English. Of the 200 most common words, all but 17 are Old English. These words – the, and, of, for, love, think, man, wife (which originally meant “woman”), child, heart, house, eat, drink, live, work – are the core of our language. Most of them express simple, unrefined ideas.
From KRP’s What’s in a Word NIE supplement from the NIE Institute.
What’s in a Word? Probably more than you think. Take the word word, for instance. Word is more than 10 centuries old. It’s related to the Germanic word wort. It’s also related to verbum (Latin for “word”) and eirein (Greek for “to say or to speak”). Who would think there could be so much history in four little letters?
Every word has a story, and some words have more than one. All of them together make up our language. Put them together, and you can say just about anything you want. Words are symbols that stand for things and ideas. Each word means something in particular; we combine them to express concepts ranging from simple to complex. Each word has a spoken and a written form, so that we can communicate either by talking or writing.
But everything about language isn’t simple and straightforward. A word often has several meanings. Sometimes several words mean the same thing. A single word can sometimes have different layers of meaning – it can express one idea openly and merely hint at another. Words can also be used to disguise a meaning when we don’t want to come right out and say it.
Every word has a root. A root is a base word, which may be changed by adding prefixes, suffixes, or other root words to it. Some roots, such as bio, geo, and ped, must be combined with other parts to form complete words. Others are complete words in themselves.
The word know, for example, can be modified or combined with other word parts to create many new words: knew, knows, knowing, knowingly, known, knowable, knower, unknown, knowability, knowingness, unknowingly, unknowingness, knowledge, know-how, know-it-all, know-nothing, knowledgeable, knowledgeably, knowledgeability, knowledgeableness
ACTIVITIES
1. Find a root word in a newspaper headline. Using this word as a base, see how many
other words you can form.
2. Pick a comic strip from today’s newspaper and rewrite it using only the root words (no prefixes or suffixes allowed!). Read the new version out loud.
3. Pick one section of the newspaper and see how many words you can find that are based on the following root words*:
auto (self)
chron (time)
feder, fid, fide (faith, trust)
form (form, shape)
gram, graph (write, written)
log, logo, ology (word, study, speech)
mem (remember)
mori, mors, mort (mortal, death)
port (carry)
psych (mind, soul)
sens, sent (feel)
techni (skill)
tele (far)
uni (one)
*(From Basic English Revisited by Sebranek and Meyer)
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.
Information and activities are from Featuring the Frameworks – Linking Language Arts to Your Newspaper from the Washington Times, provided by the NIE Institute.
People who read the newspaper understand its unique language. The activities below will help you to learn this newspaper language.
1. The FLAG is the name of the newspaper. You will find the flag on the front page at the top. What is the name of your newspaper?
2. A HEADLINE is the title of a newspaper story. Headlines are written in larger type than the rest of the story. Find a headline in your newspaper.
3. The INDEX is the list of the main contents of a newspaper and the page number where they appear. Find the index of your newspaper and locate the page number of the comics. (Hint: the index of the Grand Forks Herald is listed on the top half of the front page.)
4. In a newspaper, the information describing a photograph is called a CUTLINE. Find a cutline describing a photograph in your newspaper.
5. At the beginning of some stories, a DATELINE will give the location and origin of a story. In your newspaper, find a dateline of a city not in the United States.
6. Organizations which sell news and pictures from distant cities are called WIRE SERVICES. Common wire services are AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International). Find the name of a wire service in the newspaper.
7. The name of the reporter who wrote an article is often printed at the beginning of the story. This is called a BYLINE. How many bylines are on the front page of today’s newspaper?
