Each student will present a full-sized news article to the rest of the class. This is a three-part assignment. This assignment is worth 15 project points and 10 assessment points.
Article Choice.
The article must be at least 25 sentences—so don’t use one of those little news digests. It must have been published in the past 14 days. I want real articles. It must be from an actual news source. That means not google or yahoo. Those are websites that collect news, they don’t report on any news themselves. Some places to try: 1) The newsweekly magazines: Newsweek (newsweek.com), Time (time.com), US News And World Report (usnews.com); 2) The local papers: San Jose Mercury News (sjmercury.com) or San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate.com); or 3) The “Big Four” national newspapers: New York Times (nytimes.com), Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com), Washington Post (washingtonpost.com), or Los Angeles Times (latimes.com). You may not use any of the following: blogs (even if they work for one of the listed papers), Opinion or Editorials (where the writer has an opinion), any news based on a TV network (cnn.com, foxnews.com, etc.), or any of the many political blogs (huffingtonpost.com, drudgereport.com, politico.com, etc.) When in doubt, make sure that the source has a physical paper or magazine printed and that they don’t just exist online. Ask me if you have questions about your source. Often, a local paper buys a news story from another paper. Make sure you give proper credit to the actual author.
Written Half.
Label: Name, period, date, news source, be sure to include the link to your article. Put the headline of the article at the top of your write-up. 400 words total (yes, I’ll count them). No more than 200 of them can be summary. The summary must be in your own words. The bulk of your written assignment should be the connection of the article to concepts we’ve discussed in class. How does the article relate to U.S. Government? What level of government is it? How do you know? You will upload or write this using google docs (docs.google.com) and share the file with me (teachercummins@gmail.com) as editor. This half of the assignment is due before the class period in which you are scheduled to present. Be sure to title your google doc correctly ("period last name first name Current Event")
Presentation Half.
Very short. Do not panic about this part. Two to five minutes. Use note cards as a reference, not as a script. You should be reasonably able to answer questions from the class about the article.
Scheduling.
You will know your assigned day well in advance. If you are not prepared that day, you will forfeit all points. Once the whole class has presented, if there are any additional days available, you may make-up your missed presentation for a maximum half-credit.
Informational Text Summary.
All students are required to turn in one Informational Text Summary.
1) Download framework. This file can be edited (word document OR google doc).
2) Fill in the writing framework, taking out all the helper words in the parenthesis and the underlining, etc.
3) Rewrite your summary in 35 words or fewer using the framework you wrote.
4) Delete both the steps page and the rubric.
5) Turn in via google docs. Download it, fill it in, look at the rubric, and upload and share it with me via google docs (I'm teachercummins@gmail.com). Both parts should fit on one page. Call it "P1 Smith Betty Informational Text" or something similar. This is due at midnight on your due date. This is worth ten assessment points.
Scoring Rubric, Presentation Rules, and Summary Framework is attached below for your reference. You don't need to print it if you don't want to.