Current Events :: Part 2

When we did our first current events unit, I looked through the teaching current events pages I printed off. I found two core teaching ideas that drove our study.

Why is it news? Each day, newspaper editors around the world must make decisions about which stories they will publish. Stories make it into newspapers for many different reasons. Invite students to look at the stories that have made the front page of a local newspaper during the last few days and to talk about why each of those stories made headlines. Among the reasons students might come up with are these:

• Timeliness -- News that is happening right now, news of interest to readers right now.


• Relevance -- The story happened nearby or is about a concern of local interest.


• Magnitude -- The story is great in size or number; for example, a tornado that destroys a couple houses might not make the news but a story about a tornado that devastates a community would be very newsworthy.


• Unexpectedness -- Something unusual, or something that occurs without warning.


• Impact -- News that will affect a large number of readers.


• Reference to someone famous or important -- News about a prominent person or personality.


• Oddity -- A unique or unusual situation.


• Conflict -- A major struggle in the news.


• Reference to something negative -- Bad news often "sells" better than good news.


• Continuity -- A follow-up or continuation to a story that has been in the news or is familiar.


• Emotions -- Emotions (such as fear, jealousy, love, or hate) increase interest in a story.


• Progress -- News of new hope, new achievement, new improvements.

In the days ahead, study each front-page story and talk about why editors decided to put the story on page one. Which reason(s) on the students' list would explain the newsworthiness of the story?

A five W variation. Provide each students with a news story. The student lists on a separate sheet of paper the who, where, when, what, and why of the story. Then the students' papers are collected and redistributed so no student has his or her own sheet. Each students takes a look at their five W list and writes the opening paragraph of a news story based on that information. At the end of the activity, students share their stories and the original stories to see how they compare. How accurate were the students' stories?

Both of these suggestions and more can be found in an article entitled Twenty-Five Great Ideas for Teaching Current Events! at EducationWorld.com

To tackle current events from a Christian perspective, I added my own questions:

How does this event promote or violate Biblical principles and a Biblical World View?

Do you think this event brings God pleasure and joy or pain and sorrow? Why?

These questions were a great springboard to discussions where we could open the Bible and pull out Scripture to support or disprove these questions.