Read All About It!

CONTENT STANDARDS
· Reading and Writing: Standard 1 grades 5-8: Using a full range of strategies to comprehend technical writing, newspapers, magazines, poetry, short stories, plays, and novels; Standard 2 grades 5-8: Incorporating source materials into their speaking and writing. Writing and speaking in the content areas using the technical vocabulary of the subject accurately.
· History: Standard 1.1 grades 5-8: Chronologically organizing major events and people of U.S. history. Standard 1.3 grades 5-8: Interpreting historical data to determine cause-effect and time-order relationships. Standard 2.2 grades 5-8: Distinguishing between primary and secondary sources. Standard 5.3 grades 5-8: Describe how military and /or economic expansion resulted in the assumption or seizure of political power throughout history.

KNOWLEDGE
· Understand the difference between primary and secondary sources and their potential accuracy/inaccuracies.
· Understand the structure and design of newspaper articles.
· Understand the major events of World War II and their chronological order.
· Understand U.S. involvement and strategy during World War II as well as events taking place back in the U.S. during the war.

SKILLS
· Ability to comprehend and interpret information from newspaper articles.
· Ability to synthesize information taken from newspapers over a several years of history and place it in chronological order.
· Ability to summarize and convey information to others orally.

RELEVANCE
Newspapers combine news, politics, sports, fashion, religion, entertainment, comics and editorial information from a local as well as national perspective all in one chronologically ordered source. They are excellent primary sources of history. Besides, old newspapers are just plain cool!
Understanding how newspapers are organized helps students to quickly use them as reference material and may spark some early interest in reading them. This lesson exposes students to newspapers and gives them an opportunity to analyze information, explain it to their class, learn some history and organize it chronologically.

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
Orient students as to how newspapers are structured and how the articles are organized for quick reading. This will allow students to retrieve and evaluate information from several front page articles much quicker. Build enough background knowledge in WWII for them to understand the event they are going to be reading about. Build enough background knowledge in the geography of the war that they understand where in the world these events are taking place. Explain that they will not understand everything they will be reading, but that it’s alright because the goal is to understand the “Big picture” of what is happening. Many Americans living through this event didn’t understand where Iwo Jima or Danzig was either.

VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
One of the purposes of this lesson is to teach students the difference between primary and secondary source material.

GROUPING
This is a small group reading lesson. Introduce the above vocabulary and background knowledge as a whole group then organize your class into small groups accordingly. Because newspapers are not leveled and often contain unfamiliar language, you will need to group your below-level readers with on-level or advanced readers.

MATERIALS
You need copies of the front page of any newspaper from key times in World War II. The newspapers need to cover the length of World War II. For example, I used the front page of the New York Times from the following dates:
· 1 September 1939 – German invasion of Poland.
· 26 April 1940 – Roosevelt swears the U.S. will remain neutral and sell the British 12,000 planes.
· 27 September 1940 - Japan joins axis alliance.
· 8 December 1941 – Attack on Pearl Harbor.
· 8 November 1942 – U.S. soldiers land in West Africa.
· 8 June 1943 – Rationing, the draft, women joining the services and war bonds.
· 6 June 1944 – D-Day invasion.
· 7 May 1945 – Hitler’s suicide, Germany’s surrender and V-E Day.
· 7 August 1945 – Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
· 9 August 1945 – Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki & Soviets declare war on Japan.
· 31 August 1945 – Japanese surrender, prison camps discovered, end of rationing.

INSTRUCTION
Read aloud an old headline and story as an anticipatory set. Start the lesson by polling the class about their knowledge of newspapers. How many have ever read a newspaper (something besides the comics!)? Why are the stories organized into such narrow columns?
Orient students as to how newspapers are structured and how the articles are organized for quick reading. Teach the difference between primary and secondary sources and the importance of knowing your sources when doing research.
Explain the lesson and build background knowledge. Carefully model exactly what you expect. If you don’t model it, be prepared for a whole lot of arguing about who is going to talk first and very low quality group presentations. Divide up the groups, distribute the newspapers and set them to work. Give the students a specific amount of time for reading and preparing their presentations. Monitor the groups.
Draw a timeline on the board for the groups to add their events to. Have each group stand in front of the class and give a report on what they read. Guide the class in a discussion about what was going on in the world at that time. Guide and assist them in synthesizing the information by adding details that are not included in the articles. When they are done with their report, have the students enter their event onto the timeline and sit down. Supply tape for them to attach their paper to the board under their event on the timeline. This will help to illustrate the timeline as well as give the other groups a chance to look at the papers. Once completed, review the timeline as a class.

ACCOMMODATIONS
· Enrichment- Have students report on lesser known events. Sports, fashion, political elections and Japanese internment. Have other sections of the newspaper for these students to look at and interpret.
· Remediation- Careful organization of reading groups and reducing the amount of information students will have to understand and interpret (e.g. just the headline story). Supply students with maps to clarify country and city names and locations.

ASSESSMENT
Draw a time line on the board and have each group give an oral report on what they read. Each group will place their event on the timeline and connect their events to the previous event on the timeline. Discuss the events as a class. All students should participate in the oral presentation.

SCORING CRITERIA
Plate Tectonics Drawing Rubric
Excellent - Groups are able to report what they read in their newspaper. They are able to place their events on the timeline and connect them to the previous event on the timeline. All students in the group participate in the oral presentation.
Good - Groups are able to report what they read in their newspaper. They are unable to place their events on the timeline or connect them to the previous event on the timeline. Most of the students in the group participate in the oral presentation.
Need Improvement - Groups are unable to report what they read in their newspaper. Only one or two students in the group participate in the oral presentation.

FOLLOW UP
Continue to spark interest in newspapers by bringing in other front page news for them to read and evaluate.

This type of lesson is limited only by your imagination. It can be used with any era of history or type of event that you can get a newspaper articles for (e.g. sports, the Depression, Prohibition, Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War etc…). It doesn’t have to be a significant historical event either. You could also enrich this lesson by combining music or other literature sources from the same time.

Charles Rasmussen, M.A.Edu.

Alamosa Public Schools
Evans Elementary School

Spring 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

It has been my pleasure to supervise student teacher William Allen during the 2008/2009 school year. Initially, Mr. Allen was assigned by my principal to observe in my classroom for is senior year "Sr. Block" requirements. He quickly recognized those students needing remedial help and began to take on more and more responsibility in helping me meet the needs of a large class. As such, I specifically made a request to Adams State College Department of Education that he be assigned as my student teacher for Spring Semester. I've never done this before, but recognized quickly that he is highly qualified to teach students with difficult needs as well as those that are advantaged.

William has an impeccable work ethic. He never missed school. He had lesson plans completed two weeks ahead of time the entire semester. He works well with staff. He is easy to work with, has a pleasant personality and fun sense of humor. He gets along extremely well with students. He conducted the most recent Parent Teacher Conference by himself, with my watching from a distance. He relates well to parents. His ability to utilize technology in his teaching is second to none. His knowledge base of all academic areas is completely solid. He's well seasoned in the Core Knowledge Series curriculum and he understands how Bloom's Taxonomy is to be used to aid greater student understanding and application.

In addition to all of these most remarkable strengths, know that his integrity and moral character are his greatest assets. He understands well. better than most veteran teachers in fact, what is appropriate and what is not. Never does he cross lines. His character is simply flawless, reflective of his self discipline learned in military service and leadership as well as being reared in a home where integrity and the work ethic were embedded.

I have taught, coached, and been an administrator during my 25 years in public education. During that time I have supervised seventeen student teachers. Mr. Allen tops the list as to who I would give my highest recommendation. Your school would be greatly enriched and most fortunate by including him as part of your staff.

Sincerely,
K. Charles Rasmussen, M.A.Edu.