Do you ever watch those late night talk shows when they have a reporter who goes out on the streets of a city and ask people civics or current events type questions? Questions like "Who is the vice president?" "Can you tell me what this is? (it's a picture of one of the national monuments) "Who is the secretary of state?" The questions are interesting and often answered incorrectly. Yet, if you ask these same people any type of pop culture question, they would be "Johnny on the spot"!
It's interesting that in some ways we are considered "more in touch" because of all of our electronic gadgets, but in other ways we have lost touch with information we need if we are to make good decisions as citizens. What can we as teachers do?
Kelly Gallagher, the author of Readicide, has addressed this problem using a weekly reading assignment called "The Article of the Week". If you have this book, reread pages 46 - 51. He goes into more detail and I highly recommend you purchase or borrow the book. He has links to the articles for his assignments on his site.
Once a week, my friend Sandy, has a "News of the Week" lesson. Students:
*Read an article
*Discuss the article
*Complete an assignment (get your copy below)
*Post the article on the bulletin board
*Pin the location of the article on the map
Sandy graciously gave me permission to share her N.O.W. assignment with you. Thank you Sandy!
I also have a FREE current event lesson you can download by clicking on the picture.
Here are some books you can share with your class:
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this great idea. I loved doing current events in my classroom.
Arlene
LMN Tree
I love this post for several reasons:
1. I loved the book Readicide... (I wrote on a post on it too: http://alwaysalesson.com/?s=readicide)
2. I am teaching citizenship right now in S.S.
3. I am so passionate about students doing Current Events to stay aware of what is happening in the world around them. I find when they focus on others, their perspective grows and suddenly they mature into caring and appreciative children. It's a beautiful thing to watch.
KUDOS to you for also helping your children become active participants in the world around them. :)
Always A Lesson
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