Newspapers & Current events ONLINE!

Today I presented a current events lesson with my partners. We presented a lesson on the 5 W's: What, Where, Who, When and Why. We used these to deceiver a news article. In this lesson we taught the class how to use wordle and include that into a current event project. When we were coming up with an idea of what to do we had decided that wordle would make reading a news article fun and interesting. We thought that in our classroom the students could each a news article of a current event that they would need to read for friday and bring it in but in the form of a wordle and explain it to the class using the 5 W's.

This is the wordle we used in our lesson and from this wordle I could explain to the class what the article was about. Who write to article and the article's title. The class all made their own and shared them.This activity can be modified for most ages. The wordle can be added for the middle level grades and dropped for the lower level grades. The upper level grades like fifth and sixth grade could use the wordle to write a summary about their article to present to the class. The wordles could be included in a power point that all of the students contribute to. I had a lot of fun working with this program and making a wordle. We used an online news site called newsela, and I really like this site because you can quiz yourself on the article or highlight important features of the article.

Every group presented a different way to use current events in the classroom and I have found them most helpful in thinking of creative ways to get students excited about reading the paper and involving themselves in the world beyond their front door.

I remember doing current events in school every Friday we had to bring in an article about a court case (it was for a criminal justice class). We had to provide a summary explaining what happened in the court case and who was involved. I found this a lot of fun but it was because it was a subject that I wanted to learn about. I remember doing this current events activity in 8th grade and it was not as much fun. I was never interested in the articles that I picked and that was part of the problem. I would like to take this activity one step further and incorporate the community into the current events project. I would like the students to pick articles that are taking place in their community and how they could get involved and depending on the grade level challenging the students to get involved on their own. The students who are too young to do this I would incorporate food drives or other ways for them to get involved in the classroom, the students would then bring their food to the soup kitchen or church that gives it out to the needy. Having the students see where the food goes I believe is very important for them to grasp the concept of community and helping and giving.

I was given an article "5 Ways Students Can Visually Explore the News." by Richard Byrne
This article was very interesting and gives great examples of how students can explore the news on their own. All of the ways he goes into are all online and all free!! I really liked the Newseum's Today's Front Pages. This website is really awesome! It connects where the papers are written with in relationship to where you are plus it gives you the front page view of their paper! I played around with this site and It was a lot of fun to see how many papers are written in certain states and the distances between them. This can spark a conversation about cities and towns and why there maybe more papers written in the city verses a town.

I would like to challenge you to think of ways to incorporate your class in the community around you. How will you educate your students on the community they live in and how will you get your students to realize that there are people out there less fortunate then they are?!?

Until Next time!