Classroom Activities
Extension Activities
Newspaper
Recommended for Grades 9-12
Download and print the artifact images that go with the narrative you have finished reading. Ask students to select one historic topic in the narrative to focus on. Give students time to conduct further research on the topic using the Internet, library, and your textbook. Instruct students to write a newspaper article on their topic that is accompanied by one or more of the artifact images from the narrative. You can assign a writing category and length or let students select. Some options are:
- A Letter to the Editor-a persuasive writing piece
- A Feature Story-a descriptive, human interest piece
- A News Article-a factual, expository writing piece
Create a "front page" for your classroom newspaper and arrange student submissions to create a full edition. Make copies and distribute to the class.
State Learning Standards
State Goal 2: Read and understand literature representative of various societies, eras, and ideas. Learning Standard B: Read and interpret a variety of literary works.
State Goal 3: Write to communicate for a variety of purposes. Learning Standard B: Compose well-organized and coherent writing for specific purposes and audiences. C: Communicate ideas in writing to accomplish a variety of purposes.
State Goal 5: Use the language arts to acquire, assess and communicate
information. Learning Standard B: Analyze and evaluate information
acquired from various sources.
C: Apply acquired information, concepts and ideas to communicate
in a variety of formats.
State Goal 16: Understand the events, trends, individuals, and movements shaping the history of Illinois, the United States and other nations. Learning Standard A: apply the skills of historical analysis and interpretation.
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