Current+Events+Assignment

Current Events Assignment

You will be organized into groups of five students. A schedule will be arranged so that each group will be responsible for finding one newspaper article online that can be submitted to any of the following areas of study in Social Studies:
 * Economy
 * Geography and Environment
 * Politics
 * Law
 * Society and Culture

Procedures:
 * 1) Get together with your group and make sure you understand when your deadline is for submission of the news articles to the Wiki.
 * 2) Each group member must be responsible for a **__different area of focus__** in Social Studies. Decide who is responsible for each area, but you may help each other find the appropriate news articles.
 * 3) Find the articles online.
 * 4) For each article, the following must be included:
 * 5) ** Article Information **
 * 6) Title of the Article, "New way of fish farming could help fix environment"
 * 7) Source of the Article, ex. __The Vancouver Sun__
 * 8) Date the Article was Published, ex. "March 25, 2010"
 * 9) Posted by ... ie. Mr. D
 * 10) ** Link to article. **
 * 11) You can provide a link of the URL where readers can find to article.
 * 12) You can provide a link to open up a Word document to view the copied article.
 * 13) ** Summary of Article **
 * 14) Write a concise paragraph that summarizes to main ideas of the news article.
 * Who? Who was involved?
 * What? What happened (what's the story)?
 * When? When did it take place?
 * Where? Where did it take place?
 * Why? Why did it happen?
 * How? How did it happen?
 * 1) ** Reaction to the Article **
 * 2) Write a well-organized paragraph providing your reaction to the article. You may give your opinion about an aspect of the article. You can reveal how the article has helped teach you something new about the world. You can go on a rant about the events presented in the article.
 * 3) ** Two Discussion Questions **
 * 4) In the discussion tab, post two individual questions that are intended to promote discussion from your fellow classmates and Wiki members. Even your teacher or peer tutors may get involved in the chatter. The questions are meant to stimulate thoughts and reactions about the events presented in the article. So, the questions should not just ask for answers from the article.
 * 5) It takes lots of practice to learn how to ask good questions. Trust me, I know because I have to do it everyday. In order to help you create good discussion questions, take a look at this document that outlines the [[file:Four Levels of Questions Ryerson.pdf]]. Try to create questions that are **third** or **fourth** level questions.
 * 6) When posting each of the questions, the "Subject" should include a title with your first name (only) and question #. For example, "Mike's Question #1" or "Kyle's Question #2".

__** Class Discussion **__

Once a group submits their articles to the Wiki by their respective deadlines, classmates and Wiki members should visit **each** "Area of Study" page (Economy, Geography and Environment, Politics, Law, Society and Culture) to check out the news article entry and **join the discussion** stimulated by the posted questions.


 * You are encouraged to **__post__** your own thoughts about the news article.
 * You are encouraged to **__respond__** to previous comments made by other students. For example, "I agree with Mike that eating farmed salmon is less desirable that eating wild salmon..."
 * You are encourage to **__question__** the responses of others. After reading others' comments, you may decide to post a different question in order to stimulate more discussion.
 * You are encouraged to **__extend__** the discussion. Just because you have commented once about a news article doesn't mean you have to stop there. Monitor your comments and keep the discussion alive.

Be CRITICAL of everyone's thoughts, BUT also be RESPECTFUL and considerate of everyone's comments and feelings. Remember, as GP Social Studies Current Events Wiki moderator, I can view all actions and comments made on this site.

Enjoy and learn!!!