Who's in the News Bulletin Board -- Teacher Preview

Grade Levels: 6 - 10

Length of Project:

2 hours

Level of Independence:

Basic

Goals:

1. To introduce students to current events.
2. To provide students with a homework project.
3. To produce a class bulletin board.

During This Project Students Will:

1. Choose a person from current events to study.
2. Follow an outline to produce one or two notecards of information.
3. Find a photograph or draw a picture of the person chosen.
4. Present their information to the class before placing notecards and pictures on the bulletin board.

   Skills:

   Collecting data
   Listening
   Making notecards
   Summarizing
   Handwriting
   Neatness
   Spelling
   Selecting topics
   Meeting deadlines
   Accepting responsibility
   Following project outlines
   Individualized study habits
   Personal motivation
   Teaching others
   

   Handout Provided:

   “Who's in the News”

   Lesson Plans and Notes:

   Hour 1: Give students their handouts and explain the parameters of the project. Set a due date and have students write this date on their handouts, then discuss a few examples of people in the news.
   

   Notes:

   • It's a good idea to exclude certain areas, such as sports and entertainment, from this project if you want to concentrate on current events. Consider the possibility of doing a second bulletin board on nothing but sports and entertainment personalities.
   • The project is designed to let each student choose someone to study independently. This could lead to several students' choosing the same person, however, so it is wise to provide an incentive to select a person that no one else is studying. Try this: Offer five "bonus" points to every student whose topic selection is unique. Post a list in the classroom that shows selections as they are made. This will prevent most problems with duplicates.

   Hour 2: Students bring their notecards and pictures to school on the due date. Each student presents his or her information to the class, and then places the notecards and picture on a bulletin board.

   Note:

   Bulletin board space is needed for this hour. One way to display students' material is to place all of the pictures in the center of the bulletin board, like a collage, and surround them with notecards. Then run colored string from each card to the picture of the person it describes, or give each card and corresponding picture a number so that students can tell who's who

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