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A Free and Open Press: Evaluating the Media
Students compare and critically evaluate the different media as sources of news, develop criteria for defining "news", experience the editorial process of selecting news stories and detect bias in news reporting.
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Scooting Away from Justice?
Students examine President Bush's July 2007, decision to commute the 30-month sentence of former White House official, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby by reading a New York Times article. They scan editorial sources on various sides of the...
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Reconstruction to Civil Rights
Eighth graders complete a unit of lessons on the period of time from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights movement. They analyze and interpret political cartoons and editorials, conduct research on famous civil rights places, and complete...
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Publication Project
Ninth graders publish a magazine during a ten week marking period. They make individual contributions to the group project that is based on career choices. They write and publish articles, poems, entertainment pieces, and a play that...
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Kicking It Around
Students analyze the recent boom in women's sports, focusing on the Women's World Cup Soccer tournament to examine various people's views about women athletes. They write a newspaper article summarizing what they learned in their...
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Gender Bender
Students explore the effects of Title IX. In addition, tudents create revised rulebooks for a sport in their school based on their understanding of Title IX and write a related article for the school newspaper.
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Able Am I
Students read the article "Disabled Skier Designs His Way to Be a Daredevil." They discuss using the questions on the lesson plan. Students create large sized baseball cards featuring competitive, disabled athletes.
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What's Being Done?
Students explore the concept of animal welfare. In this philanthropy lesson, students examine legislation that supports animals in their state as well as the role of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to...
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Conversation Lesson: Men and Women - Equal at Last?
Students engage in a debate about equality between men and women as a way to work on their conversational skills. The format of the debate is imbedded in this plan.
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A Historical Career Search
Students analyze the use of language, including non-standard written and oral English. They write persuasive, descriptive, narrative and/or evaluative pieces in response to the story read and keep reflection journals. Finally, students...
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The Rise and Fall of the Jim Crow Era
Students explore African American history by researching the Jim Crow laws. In this Civil Rights lesson, students define the Jim Crow laws, the reasons they were put into place, and how they were ultimately defeated. Students write a...
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The Civil War: On the Homefront
Eighth graders examine the role of Indiana soldiers in the Civil War. In this American Civil War lesson, 8th graders listen to a lecture about the involvement of Indiana soldiers in the war and then analyze letters written home by the...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
B. Franklin, Printer and the Public Eye
Learners explore U.S. history by researching famous Americans. In this Benjamin Franklin lesson plan, students read portions of a biography about Franklin and identify his position within U.S. politics and as a leader in the battle for...
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Research Paper
An outline for a research paper assignment lists the expectations, grading rubric, and due dates for an extended research writing project.
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The Making of Our First President
Students investigate George Washington's military career. In this George Washington instructional activity, students research the contributions of Washington the colonial military and then write editorials about his accomplishments for a...
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Integrating Past Continuous
Pupils recognize the situations in which the use of the past continuous would be beneficial in writing. They focus on the use of the past continuous as a descriptive tense when something important occurred.
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Vocabulary Charts
Students create their own vocabulary charts. They divide into groups and view an example of a vocabulary chart imbedded in this plan. Then, they create their own chart which is based on a particular subject area.
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Speaking and Listening Lesson Based on Ordering Food in a Restaurant
Students practice the skill of ordering food in a restaurant. After a lecture/demo, students work in pairs. Utilizing a worksheet imbedded in this plan, they gain practice in the skill of ordering food from a menu.
Teaching Tolerance
Journalism for Justice
Roll the presses! Or at least have your class members participate in the time-honored tradition of the student press by creating their own newspapers or journalist pieces on a social problem. After conducting research and collaborating...
PBS
Interviewing: The Art of Asking Questions
Interviewing skills are important, even outside of a news reporter's desk or employer's office. Take your class through the process of interviewing people they don't know with a set of case studies featuring journalists and various...
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Online Collaborative Social Studies Lesson Plan
Learners create newspapers and post them online for others to see.
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The Campaign: Issues and Strategies. What do you think?
Students research a candidate in an election and discuss how the media portrays that candidate and how the media influences voters. In this candidate lesson plan, students also distinguish fact from opinion, look at political cartoons,...
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Speak Out!
Students consider their opinions on various topics and issues related to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Then, focusing on one specific topic, each student supports his or her opinions in a...
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Newspapers
Students create a class newspaper about the Olympics. In this newspaper lesson, students discuss the basic characteristics of each component of the newspaper. Students work in small groups to complete stations on cartoons,...