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Newspapers in Education:
Lesson plans
Lesson plans
Resources to help you incorporate the newspaper into your curriculum.
NIE Week Teacher's Guide — Connect to the World With Newspapers!
In honor of Newspapers in Education Week, which is always celebrated the first full week in March, we have made a new teacher's guide available free from our website that can be used anytime of the year. Activities in the teacher's guide are designed to help middle-school and high-school students improve their reading comprehension by making connections to self, to the world and to text through newspaper activities. The newspaper is the perfect resource for helping students make these connections because it matches their prior knowledge, interests and experiences.
The 62-page guide features 14 lesson plans, each with a student activity sheet. Also included in the guide are 14 elementary-level pages for younger students. They parallel the lesson plans and activities in the guide and focus on local and community news.
Download this lesson plan (Acrobat PDF, 2.7 MB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Welcome to PARADE classroom! Each week we'll offer updated current events lesson plans and activities that are FREE for you to download and use with the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times. Order classroom newspapers.
Download the Parade Classroom Editorial Calendar.
Missed a week? All previous plans are archived for your convenience.
Just click on the Parade Classroom logo above for weekly Teacher's Guides.
The News Game
This weekly current events quiz, brought to you by the Wisconsin State Journal, is designed specifically for middle and high school teachers, students and their parents. It is a comprehensive and rigorous review of current events taking place in the community, state, nation and world.
Questions at four different levels of difficulty will appear in eight categories, from sports to business, government to geography. The News Game (questions and answers) will be published every Saturday. If you would like access to both the quiz and answers simultaneously, e-mail Tim Kelley, Managing Editor, at tkelley@madison.com for your password to the Web site.
Literacy Tab Chock-Full of Great Ideas
In honor of International Literacy Day, the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times will publish a special supplement on Friday, September 7, 2007.
This year's newly expanded 12-page tab, "Newspapers Give People Knowledge and Guidance," encourages families to make reading the newspaper a family affair and contains an abundance of ideas for educators as well. Written by the National Center for Family Literacy, it includes newspaper activities for vocabulary, writing and comprehension. It touches on different parts of the newspaper from world news to science to entertainment, with something for all age levels.
Want to invite the newspaper into your classroom, but need some ideas? For copies of the tab, contact Lisa at (608) 252-6004 or lmaly@madison.com.
First Things First: Using the Newspaper to Teach the Five Freedoms of the First Amendment
The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our democracy. This 41-page teachers guide introduces the five freedoms of the First Amendment to students at all grade levels. Each freedom has one elementary level activity, one middle school activity and one high school activity. Perfect for Constitution Day, September 17!
Download this lesson plan (Acrobat PDF, 264 KB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Speaking of a Free Press
More than 200 years of quotations about freedom of the press. These quotes can spark discussion and cause people to think about this freedom that we tend to take for granted. Every history, government and civics teacher in your circulation area should have a copy of these 25 pages of quotations. It is a must for all school journalism advisors! Some of these quotations are well know but there may be many you have never seen before.
Download this lesson plan (Acrobat PDF, 112 KB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Newspapers Maintain the Brain: A Teacher's Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills
For teachers the newspaper offers a special attraction. It has been called the living textbook and it lives up to that name. The newspaper can be used to enhance skills in reading, writing, listening, speaking, math, social studies and science. Critical thinking is the natural outgrowth of using a newspaper to learn. Unlike textbooks, which are several years outdated by the time they get into students' hands, the newspaper comes alive with information. The newspaper expands the curriculum with an unlimited amount of information to use as background for learning activities.
Download this lesson plan (Acrobat PDF, 1.3 MB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Newshounds
"Newshounds" is written specifically for 4th-6th grade students to provide them with an overview of the newspaper – its content and writing styles. Activities are aimed at developing reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, as well as students' ability to think critically.
"Newshounds" consists of 10 units. Each unit focuses on a different aspect of the newspaper and contains a teacher's notes page, a fact sheet, two student activities and a newspaper knowledge certificate.
This curriculum guide is free to NIE teachers. To order, contact us at lmaly@madison.com or (608) 252-6004.
Download the Newshounds Teacher's Guide (Acrobat PDF, 2.1 MB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
The Ultimate Sunday Activity Guide
This 48-page teacher's guide offers tons of activities utilizing every section of the Sunday newspaper from the business pages and all those ads to the sports section and the comics. To order, contact us at lmaly@madison.com or (608) 252-6004.
And don't forget to order the Sunday Wisconsin State Journal, too! Delivery to schools on Mondays is available in some areas. Order classroom newspapers.
All Together Now: Living and Learning in a Multicultural Society
The more we know about people who are different from us in some way, the more we can understand what's happening in our local communities, our country and the world. The newspaper is an excellent tool to help you expand your knowledge so you can increase your understanding of the world. Look at the international, national, state and local news sections in the newspaper. You'll find new information about citizens of other countries. You'll also learn of the contributions made by different ethnic groups in this country and about how friends and neighbors celebrate their cultures in this community.
Download this lesson plan (Acrobat PDF, 92 KB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Reading First – NIE!
Now available, "Reading First – NIE!" is a curriculum guide based on the No Child Left Behind legislation. The newspaper-based activities suggested are meant to supplement and enrich each of the five elements recommended by the National Reading Panel: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary and Text Comprehension. It also contains ideas for parents to use with their children at home, as well as national trends in reading instruction. Using the newspaper – an authentic resource – with this guide can provide one of the most comprehensive resources to help a child become a reader.
Download this free guide (Acrobat PDF, 1.9 MB; requires Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader software to view and print. Adobe Reader is free and downloadable from Adobe's Web site.)
Wisconsin History Day by Day - www.wishistory.com
Wisconsin History Day by Day offers students and teachers one of the largest collections of Wisconsin-related history links on the Web. The historical tidbits are arranged by date or can be accessed through an alphabetical index. Besides the links, Wisconsin History Day by Day includes a listing of book titles focusing on Wisconsin's colorful history, interesting facts for each topic, vocabulary, links to online archives and more. Many of the dates and topics include copies of the actual newspaper article covering the historical event. The Web site is a great reference resource for students working on history projects, term papers, extra credit reports or independent study.
Sterling Hall Bombing and Black Student Protests
A series of famous front page news topics will be compiled online by the Wisconsin State Journal. These collections will provide you with first-hand coverage of some of the most fascinating events in the history of Madison. So far, two are complete.
First is a compilation of Wisconsin State Journal articles covering the dramatic event of the Sterling Hall bombing, which can be found at www.madison.com/library/LEE/sterlinghall.html. Second is a series of articles focusing on the black student protests on the UW campus during February 1969. This one is at www.madison.com/library/LEE.
For further information, contact Ron Larson: rlarson@madison.com or (608) 252-6113.
www.newsvoyager.com
This site hot links to newspaper homepages from every state and many foreign countries. This is a wonderful resource for doing an online target date activity with your class. (See Target Date below.)"
Target Date
Target Date involves compiling a collection of newspapers published on the same date and using them in a comparison study. Variations can range from comparing news coverage to cost of living, or can be incorporated into geography and state history studies.
The date can be selected at random or can be one of special significance because of its expected news; such as the day before or after the Super Bowl or on a holiday like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday.
Students write business letters to newspapers participating in the program in advance of the date that has been selected for their Target Date. A list with contact names and addresses are provided to those interested in participating.
If you are interested in more details of this project or ideas for what you can do with Target Date newspapers, please call (608) 252-6004 or e-mail lmaly@madison.com.
This is a project that is sure to get kids excited about the newspaper this semester!
Curriculum Guide Library
We have a wide variety of curriculum guides spanning many subjects and all age levels. Guides are free to NIE teachers. Read the list of available guides.
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