Requirements for Class Presentations of News Stories---- Current Affairs
Each week you will research a news story that focuses on your specific current affairs topic. Topic groups will rotate every 4 weeks. For each of the 4 group rotations, you will make 4 news story presentations, for a total of 16 news stories during this semester-long class. Weekly class presentations of news stories make up 30% of your term grade.
News Topics:
Local News: |
These are news stories that concern Kingston, Halifax, Plympton, and other South Shore areas. |
State News: |
These are news stories that affect all Mass. state residents (“Mass. residents will see a rise in property tax”, “Governor Patrick unveils the new state budget”) or a news story outside of the South Shore (ex. Boston, North Adams, Springfield, Ipswich, Cape Cod….) |
National Headline News |
These are important, headline-grabbing news stories that Americans are aware of in all 50 states, regardless of the state they live in (“President Bush pushes for a new strategy in Iraq”, “Former President Gerald Ford dies”, “Stock Market has its biggest one-day loss in 5 years”) |
International/World HeadlineNews |
These are important, headline-grabbing news stories that citizens around the world are aware of (ex. Earthquake in India, a world leader being ill, war updates, actions of the U.N.) |
Regional News: |
These are news stories about one of the following states: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, but not Massachusetts. |
Regional News: South and Southeast States |
These are news stories about one of the following states: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. |
Regional News: |
These are news stories about one of the following states: Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. |
Regional News: |
These are news stories about one of the following states: California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska. |
Europe News |
This can include news on Europe as a whole or on a particular European country, such as: Iceland, Ireland, England., Scotland, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Andorra, France, Monaco, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovenia, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, and Greece. |
Middle East News |
This can include news on the Middle East as a whole or on a particular Middle Eastern nation, such as: Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Israel, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Syrian, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Libya, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. |
Russian News |
This can include news on Russia as a whole or on a particular Russian region (Chechnya). |
The Rest of the World News |
This news excludes the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Russia, but considering that World Almanacs acknowledge 193 countries, there are lots of countries to cover other than those listed above, including such nations as: Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Panama, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Argentina, Venezuela, Sudan, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, Honduras, Gambia, Costa Rica, Cape Verde, Botswana, and many others. |
Business/Economic News |
This can be a general news story on the U.S. economy or Massachusetts economy, or about a specific business, such as a company making headlines for some achievement. |
Medical/Health News |
This can cover everything from medical breakthroughs to new information on health. |
Political News |
This can cover local, state, or national (the 2008 Presidential election) politics. |
Law/Legal News |
This can cover legal issues/laws, the criminal justice system, and headline-grabbing crimes. |
American Life News |
This can cover news about how Americans (as a group) live their lives. Often these stories are based on surveys or research that has been conducted on a certain topic, and usually include statistics. For example, in the article, “Goofing off is just part of office culture”, workers admitted to spending an average of 1.86 hours a day loafing on the job, according to a 2006 survey by Salary.com and America Online. Other topics: “The average American eats out at least 3 times a week”, “Study: Vanity on the rise among college students.” |
Arts and Entertainment News |
These are news stories about the entertainment or art world. You will need to choose an important story, not one based on gossip, or a trivial topic (such as a romantic breakup). |
Science and Technology News |
These news stories cover science topics ranging from the environment, cloning, space, animals, …to the latest high-tech breakthroughs (new inventions). |
Sports News |
These are important, headline-grabbing news stories, not the scores of games |
1. Find an appropriate news story that falls within your assigned category. This story can be no more than one week (7 days) old. If you are presenting a news story on February 8, then the story you choose can be no older than February 1st. There may be a tendency to want to use the first story that you see on your topic, but be careful. Find a good news source, not just any news source. The story that you choose should be long enough to provide you with in-depth details of the story (in other words, stay away from a story that is just a paragraph in length because this is not long enough). Also, the news story should have some importance to it. Stay away from insignificant, trivial, and “so what” stories.
Where do I find news stories? Here are a few suggestions:
A. news magazines (ex. Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report...)
B newspapers. (ex. The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Patriot Ledger, The Brockton Enterprise…)
C. the internet
TV news web sites: abcnews.go.com
cbsnews.com
cnn.com
msnbc.com (same as NBC news)
foxnews.com
news.bbc.co.uk (British Broadcasting Company--choose “international version”, then go to “news” tab)
Newspaper websites: boston.com (= Boston Globe, if looking up local news, scroll down the page to regional editions--south)
bostonherald.com (Boston Herald)
nytimes.com (New York Times)
patriotledger.com (Patriot Ledger)
enterprise.southofboston.com (Brockton Enterprise)
plymouth.wickedlocal.com/news (Old Colony Memorial)
usatoday.com (USA Today)
usatoday.com/news/states/ns1.htm (USA Today to find news on a specific state)
washingtonpost.com (The Washington Post)
latimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
chicagotribune.com (The Chicago Tribune)
Magazine websites: time.com (Time Magazine)
usnews.com (U.S. News and World Report)
msnbc.com (Newsweek) Scroll down and choose the “Newsweek” tab on the left-hand side.
Radio websites: wbz.com (WBZ News Radio 1030)
wtkk.com (96.9.FM Talk Radio)
General websites: news.yahoo.com
townonline.com (local news)
google.com/news
newsbystate.com
1stheadlines.com
worldnews.com
examiner.com
2. After you have found an appropriate news story, you will prepare a class presentation.
A. Write down the source of your news story; in other words, where you got your story from (ex. Newsweek magazine, cbsnews.com, The Boston Globe…) and the date that it was published or appeared on the internet.
B. Read your news story several times to become familiar with exactly what the story is all about.
C. Take notes on your news story—go beyond the news headlines to get the whole picture of what happened. Make sure that you have a good understanding of your current event. As you take notes, pay attention to the “who, what, why, where, and how” details of your particular news story.
D. Then decide which information should be included in your class presentation to give your audience a clear understanding of your news story. Some class members (and maybe even your teacher) will not have any previous knowledge about your news story, so give us some background information.(For ex. “Today my news story is about a serious virus that has been found on the South Shore. If a person gets infected with this virus, it can lead to death...)
E. As you prepare for your 2-3 minute class presentation, write out what you are going to say on index note cards. In writing your presentation, try to have a beginning, middle, and concluding section. Your presentation should not just consist of reading us the news article. Rather, you will summarize the important points in your own words and then tell why this story is important and perhaps how it affects you or our world. At the end of the presentation, give your thoughts and opinion on the story—this is a required part of your presentation.
F. Practice presenting your current event news story to a friend or family member.
3. Give the class presentation on your news story.
A. On the day of class presentations, we will “circle up” (move our chairs into a large circle).
B. Each person in your group will present their news story. This will probably take about 2-3 minutes per person.
C. I will be grading your presentation based on a rubric that has been developed for this purpose. No written information will be turned in to me.
D. When giving your class presentation, make it sound like you are telling a friend a story using a conversational style. This will discourage you from looking down at your note cards the whole time. Making eye contact with all your class members will add to your score on the presentation.
E. Your classmates may have questions for you about the news story. The class may want to discuss your story.
F. If you or I are absent from class on the due date, plan to present your article on the very next class day.