Newspapers in Education

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Newspapers in Education

• Literacy Teaching Ideas
• Presented by
• Kathy Conville Sims
• Simsboro High School

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Newspapers in Education

• Newspapers are the most widely used of the media
  as a teaching instrument in the classroom.
• Newspapers are a cost effective way to educate.
• Newspapers teach all sorts of valuable skills
  including reading comprehension, writing for
  meaning, media literacy, critical thinking, word
  meaning and sequencing.

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Reasons Teachers Use Newspapers In Education

• Builds good literacy habits that last a lifetime.
• Can be cut, marked, clipped, pasted, filed, and
  recycled.
• Gives everyone something to read news, sports,
  comics, weather, editorials, etc.
• Makes learning fun.
• Contains practical vocabulary and the sound
  models of clear, concise writing.

• An adult medium that students of all ability
  levels can be proud to be seen reading.
• Deals with whats happening now, providing
  motivation for reading/discussion.
• Extremely flexible and adaptable to all
  curriculum areas and grade levels.
• Bridges the gap between the classroom and the
  real world.

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Newspapers Impact Literacy in All Classrooms

• Language Arts
• Math
• Science
• Technology
• Social Studies
• Critical Thinking
• Life Skills
• Character Education

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Language Arts Ideas

• Remove and display headlines from news stories.
  Students take stories and match to appropriate
  headlines. Excellent group activity!
• On newspaper page draw circles around various
  parts of speech. List examples.
• Build bulletin board of articles written in and
  labeled present, past and future tense.
• Find words with prefix/suffix. Locate base word
  and meaning. Change prefix/suffix to create new
  words. Use words in a sentence.
• Cut apart comic strips with multiple frames. Have
  students sequence comics in correct order.
  Students may create their own comics strips.

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Using Newspapers in Math

• Write a word problem using an grocery
  advertisement as its basis.
• Read a page in the newspaper and underline words
  and phrases referring to time (annual,
  bicentennial, hourly, etc).
• Race through the newspaper. Circle all the number
  words you can find!
• Refer to the Living section. Choose several
  kinds of entertainment you enjoy. After
  determining the cost of each, journal about an
  imaginary weekend of entertainment including
  specifics.

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Science and Technology Ideas

• Find article about severe weather. Use dictionary
  to define unknown terms. Write essay on
  preparation for weather emergences.
• Find article discussing world problem. Write
  about an invention to solve the problem.
• Begin vocabulary list of science/technology words
  from newspaper. Record spelling, meaning and use
  of words.
• Collect advertisements for products not available
  20 years ago. Identify scientific/technological
  advances these products have made possible.
  Journal on ideas.
• Find articles on animals. Identify genus,
  species, etc. Research animal for project written
  report.

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Social Studies Ideas

• Travel by means of newspaper. Journal about
  things you might do or see in a different
  country. Share your ideas.
• Read an editorial or article. Draw political
  cartoon representing information.
• Place news stories (photos) of each state on
  large outline map of the US. Read and summarize
  articles from different states.
• Use news stories to teach new words related to
  geography, government, etc. Discuss the meaning
  of words used in newspaper stories.

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Critical Thinking Idea 1

• Choose a story from the front page.
• Find answers to the following
  Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• Note organization of story details.
• Which detail is most important? Less?
• Where is this detail found in article?
• Does the headline highlight an important fact?
• If not, where did information for headline appear
  in story?

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Critical Thinking Idea 2

• Choose editorial from newspaper.
• Underline each fact.
• Circle each opinion.
• Discuss logic of the ideas.
• Discuss the organization and development of
  arguments.
• Have students journal about their opinion(s) on
  this issue based on fact.

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Life Skills Ideas

• Take a scavenger hunt and circle certain names
  and phrases with certain meanings or emphasis.
• Prepare menus using food advertisements including
  food from all 4 food groups.
• Collect articles about accidents. Journal about
  how these accidents could have been prevented.
• Select a job in the classified section. Write a
  letter to the Human Resource director stating
  what qualities make you perfect for the job.
• Find a comic strip in the newspaper that shows a
  conflict. Rewrite it depicting a better way for
  the situation to be handled. Use a thesaurus to
  find synonyms for words. Recreate the cartoon.

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Newspapers in Character Education

• Make a Hall (Wall) of Fame by clipping articles
  of people who exhibit good character traits.
• Make a Survival Vocabulary List of words
  (including legal terms) a person would need to
  know to be a responsible citizen.
• Read an article about an honest individual and
  consider the consequences of the act.
• Make a poster of a family crest with examples of
  what is good about you and your family. Cut words
  out of newspaper that remind you of your family.
• Find articles of individuals, groups, or nations
  in conflict. Write about resolutions and
  solutions to conflict.

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My Favorite Newspaper in Education Activities

• Political Cartoons
• Bill of Rights
• Spotlight on News

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How I Use Political Cartoons in My Classrooms

• To stimulate discussion on certain topics
• To gauge prior or recently developed knowledge
  and/or values
• To gain students interest
• In some cases, just for humor
• As a form of formative or summative assessment
• To develop skills involved in interpreting
  cartoons
• To increase opportunity and motivation for
  students with lower literacy levels to participate

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Political Cartoon Activity

• Discuss political cartoon and reason behind it.
• Use current or past political cartoons.
• Analyze dates, captions, people, etc.
• Have students write a evaluative paragraph about
  the cartoon.
• Have students draw their own political
  cartoon.

• Identify people, places, time periods, vocabulary
  and symbols of cartoons.
• Compare drawings of people in cartoon to actual
  photographs.
• Use Venn diagram to show similarities and
  differences between two cartoons.
• Develop an essay, based on the Venn diagram
  exercise.

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Bill of Rights

• Brainstorm basic rights students possess as
  Americans.
• List student responses on board.
• Distribute copies of Bill of Rights.
• Identify which rights were omitted during
  brainstorming.
• Find articles in newspapers relating to
  individual rights.
• Analyze which rights the topic of the article
  relates to.
• Determine if rights were upheld or violated.

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Spotlight on News

• Read the chosen article.
• Look for important details on topic.
• Summarize those details based on the facts
  presented in the article.
• If possible, compare the news story in one
  newspaper to the same story in another newspaper.
• Write a written report of summary.
• Make an oral report to the class.

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Newspaper In Education Activities

• Support literacy in numerous ways.
• Stimulate student interest in current events.
• Support learning across the curriculum.
• Promote higher level thinking skills.
• Stimulate independent reading and writing.
• Support character development.
• Provide a lifelong desire to read and learn.
• Many of these ideas came from the Newspaper in
  Education Web site. To find more information on
  Newspaper in Education classroom activities
  visit http//nieonline.com .