CURRENT EVENTS ASSIGNMENTS
WRITING TIPS
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In History las this year, you will have regular Current Events assignments. It's a big, BIG world and history is happening all around you all of the time. One of the goals in History class this year is to have you understand and appreciate the many ways that you are connected to history. Paying attention to current events is one way to help you reach that goal.
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There are several things you need to do even before you begin your Current Events assignments.
Use these Writing Tips as a reference when filling out your Current Events Short Form. Following these guidelines will help you do your very best on these assignments.
- Browse a variety of news sources and choose a story that you connect to in some way, something that interests you, something you want to find out more about.
- Decide if you will highlight key ideas in a copy of your news story that you paste into your Current Events Short Form or if you will print out a copy of your news story to highlight by hand. It's your choice. If you choose the latter, gather highlighters and a pen or pencil. (You can also complete these assignments in Google docs.)
- In addition to these Writing Tips, make sure that you have your Current Events Short Form up on your computer screen and copies of your Writing a Strong Paragraph handout and the Current Events Rubric nearby.
Use these Writing Tips as a reference when filling out your Current Events Short Form. Following these guidelines will help you do your very best on these assignments.
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1. You can copy the Short Form from one of the links on this page or from the link inside the assignment's instructions in your Google Classroom. Be sure to put your name in the title of your Doc and put your work inside your History folder in your Drive.
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2. Make sure you have completed the entire Short Form AND highlighted your news story AND checked your writing for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.
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3. Import your completed assignment to our Classroom before its DUE date.
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CURRENT EVENTS NEWS SOURCES
Important Note: For some Current Events assignments I will suggest an article to read. When I do that, the article will relate to your History unit lesson. Most often, however, you will have a great deal of freedom to choose a current events story of interest to you. With freedom, however, comes great responsibility. Even on my suggested news sites below, you will sometimes see news story about a water-skiing squirrel or an octopus that has correctly guessed the last 8 Super Bowl champions. Stay away from those news stories. Remember that one of your goals here is to discover ways that you relate to the world and to history. To do that, your current events news story really should relate to humans.
https://www.dogonews.com/ I love this site. Explore the “Categories Bar at the top of the page. Challenge yourself and answer the comprehension questions at the end of the story.
http://www.timeforkids.com/news Another good one. Look at the left hand side bar to explore categories such as “Science” or “World” news.
http://www.ourlittleearth.com/ Most articles here are aimed at a slightly younger audience. I do like that the site does a good job of supporting their news stories with video.
http://magazines.scholastic.com/ I really like the range of articles and how the news is arranged on this site.
http://www.headlinespot.com/for/kids/ This site has links to all sorts of news sources for kids. They are separated by categories, so explore to find something of interest to you.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ For those of you who love National Geographic like I do, this site has news stories covering the globe in all sorts of categories that relate to history.
http://www.enn.com/ If you really enjoy learning about the environmental issues that face your generation. Try ENN, the Environmental News Network
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines.aspx From the National Wildlife Federation, look on the left for “Current News.”
Challenge Yourself: You do not need to stick to the news sources listed above - or below. I encourage you to examine news sources on your own, even looking at international news sources. If you are up to a bigger challenge, here are some common national news sources worth exploring:
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
https://www.dogonews.com/ I love this site. Explore the “Categories Bar at the top of the page. Challenge yourself and answer the comprehension questions at the end of the story.
http://www.timeforkids.com/news Another good one. Look at the left hand side bar to explore categories such as “Science” or “World” news.
http://www.ourlittleearth.com/ Most articles here are aimed at a slightly younger audience. I do like that the site does a good job of supporting their news stories with video.
http://magazines.scholastic.com/ I really like the range of articles and how the news is arranged on this site.
http://www.headlinespot.com/for/kids/ This site has links to all sorts of news sources for kids. They are separated by categories, so explore to find something of interest to you.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ For those of you who love National Geographic like I do, this site has news stories covering the globe in all sorts of categories that relate to history.
http://www.enn.com/ If you really enjoy learning about the environmental issues that face your generation. Try ENN, the Environmental News Network
http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines.aspx From the National Wildlife Federation, look on the left for “Current News.”
Challenge Yourself: You do not need to stick to the news sources listed above - or below. I encourage you to examine news sources on your own, even looking at international news sources. If you are up to a bigger challenge, here are some common national news sources worth exploring:
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/