Current Events: Struggles and Strategies
What problems are we experiencing when completing the Current Events Assignment? If you are struggling with the assignment post comments here and ask for help from fellow students. Is it selecting an article? Finding the key points? Or is it making a connection?
I want students to do two things in this posting- leave comments if they have struggles OR leave suggestions and strategies for those that are doing well on the assignment.
I want students to do two things in this posting- leave comments if they have struggles OR leave suggestions and strategies for those that are doing well on the assignment.
Labels: Current Events
posted by Mr. Howman | 7:58 PM
21 Comments:
one of the most problems that kids have with turning in their current events is that they cant find a good enough ariticle to do a report on. Also they cant get enough imformation from the article. I am doing very well with my current events and i put a lot of work in to it. They should make sure that they cheak over their work before turing in their current events.
see ay at school,
wexler
One of the most recent problems many peole including myself have on their current event reports are finding connections because of the reason that some articles are good for doing a report on but people cannot relate to something like an ancient ruin being found making it more difficult to make connections.
-Bret James Albro
well,i think that the most hardest thing to do is to find a article cause i know i have many problems with that. I think that making an connection is the hardest because can never really make good connecntions to a myself, a book, or to the world. People probly also have problems too because its hard to make a connection to whats happening to the world.
see ya at school,
Smity
see ya at school,
Smity
i like the ones where we learned about somthing last year.
like the king tut one becaouse its weird knowing that people still research and its a big deal even though it was soo long ago.
i think there cool to know what the did and then learn more stuff about them when its like a really long time after.
kate : )
Checking over work is certainly key to doing well on the assignment. There are plenty of articles that are appropriate to use, the key is finding topics that you are interested in and understand.
The easiest connection to make, in my opinion, is a text-text connection. After you read the article you chose search the news (using Google News) to find other article of information about the same topic and report on what else you learned from the the other text in your connection. Text to self connections can be easy to make if you have them...but often times your experiences don't match up with topics that you are reading about for this assignment.
I think that the most hardest thing to do is probley finding the articles and making the text to self connections. I think that beacause alot of the articles do not provide enough information and also alot of them are very hard to understand. i think that the connections are hard also because most of the time you can't match up your experiment that your topic is about.
No offense but basically the only articles you like are the archaeological digs and stuff, and you can only make like 2 connections to those. Like, with finding a mummy, how can you relate that to yourself or another text? Maybe you can once, but doing different versions of the same article is frustrating. I think there are too many rules and requirements.
i dont get why we cant use like sports or something- like base ball if its the "world" seiries then i does affect the whole world so its really hard to find one the fits the requirments and understand them. it takes me like an hour to do it becaouse i can never understand all of the ones that you are aloud to use
kate<33
I'm glad that some people are expressing their frustrations because I know that it hard to select an article that you understand. However, it is NOT hard to select one that is appropriate (if you understand the guidelines).
Archaeological digs and mummies are hardly the only topics that are acceptable. Topics such as: oil spills, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, tsunamis, space walks, governments, war, military, elections, laws, oceans (marine life), rainforest, global warming…the list goes on and on. And the topics do not have to be “global”, if you find an article about an environmental issue affecting Coventry or Rhode Island…use it!
The only “rules” of the assignment are to learn about the issues that affect our town, state, country, or world around us.
If anyone has a specific topic that they question whether it is appropriate or not- write about it and ask!
Kate-
Everyone knows that I love the Red Sox as much as anyone else....BUT, it’s tough to argue that the Red Sox winning the series is nearly as important as some of the issues listed below:
1. The temperature of the earth rising to the point when someday whole cities may be under water.
2. Oil, a natural resource, becoming so expensive that families have to change the way they live in order to afford to drive somewhere or heat their homes.
3. Entire species of animals becoming extinct because of the deforestation (cutting down of trees) of rainforests in various areas of the world.
4. Or, how about the earthquake that struck the South American country of Peru in August that killed over 500 people.
There are hundreds of stories about the same kinds of topics that are going on in world on a daily basis. Not all to the extreme of 500 dying in Peru, but if only one person dies related to a topic that I listed in the last comment then I think it’s more important than the Red Sox winning the World Series! (or Paris Hilton spending another day in jail)
Brianna- as mentioned in my comment above, you don't have to do a text to self connection. You can do a text to text or text to world. If you really want to do a text-self, use Google News and do searches until you find a current event topic that you can personally connect to.
The hardest part of doing Current Events is the connection, because it is hard to make text to self connections to most of the articles. I think another problem is that people procrastinate, so it is not as good as it can be because they are doing it at 8 or 9pm the day before it's due.
I agree 100% with Cassidy- I think procrastination has a huge impact on the quality and effort some students put into the current events assignment! If making a text-self is difficult then there probably isn't one- nor does there have to be! If you do not have a text-self connection then don't make one...make a text-text or text-world.
ahahhaa i get it butt its soo much eisier to find one about stuff like that rather than mummies and tumbs - it takes me like an hour just to find one not even getting to understand it, i have to read them obver and over to get a good understanding. sports and things are just soo much eisier.
kate<33
One of the biggest problems i have are making good connections. For example if i have an article about typhoons i wouldnt be able to make a text to self connection which is easiest for me because i can go on and on about a story that happened to me and or family,friends.
Well, you have one of two choices: Don't select an article about a topic that you cannot make a text to self connection with. Or, select the typhoon article and make a different type of connection (text to text or text to world). Article selection is key!!
i find it really hard to make eye contact during the oral presentation. i was clueless during the presentation and when my eyes went down to the paper it was hard to get them back upto everybody, i thought that would be easy but thinking just to get threw it, eye contact wasnt something i was focused on. i noticed it in the middle of the presentation.
(:!nathan!:)
hey everyone, it's shayna. just wanted to give some people some advice if they need it. i did great for it because i kept on practicing in front of the mirror, my friends on the bus, and my parents. so anyways. if you just put your mind to it and practice what your going to say, i garantee that you will get a better grade.
I am not having that much trouble with the current events. The two hardest things are finding an article and making a connection.
~Jess Barbosa
Mr. Howman I think that the current events are pretty tough because I'm not ot well in school. By the way when are we going to get a new one, when Mr. Campbell leaves?
MARIOMAN14
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