School Newspapers Online

School Newspapers Online launches another high school newspaper

We’ve launched yet another high school newspaper Web site for the Bend-La Pine School District in Oregon.  This is our third site for the district –– this time it’s for Summit High School.

School Newspapers Online launches another high school newspaper Web site

We’re pleased to announce a new high-school newspaper Web site for Mountain View High School in Bend, Oregon.

School Newspapers Online launches two more high school newspaper Web sites

We’re pleased to announce new student newspaper Web sites for Germantown High School in Germantown, Wisconsin, and for Middletown High School in Middletown, Maryland.

School newspapers online helps another school create a school newspaper Web site

We’re pleased to announce a new school newspaper Web site for St. Leo the Great Catholic elementary school in Oakland, California.

School Newspapers Online Launches Another High School Newspaper Web Site

We’re pleased to announce the launch of Eastside-Online.org, the online school newspaper of Cherry Hill East High School in Cherry Hill, NJ. The site features our newest design offering, Herald.

Lesson C-1: Understanding the purposes of editorials

Purpose
This lesson is designed as an introduction to having students write commentary articles. It will familiarize them with the purposes behind commentary writing, and it will get them started thinking of ideas they can write about.

Materials
Presentation with 6 Slides
Brainstorming Worksheet

Procedure
Ask students about recent commentary/opinion articles they’ve read and what they think the writer’s purpose was.

Give the presentation. With each slide, make sure you ask students for examples of stories that fit each purpose.

Give students the C-1 Worksheet. They should come up with 8 total ideas that they could possibly write about, two local, two state, two national, and two international. For each idea, they should list the topic, list their purpose (using a key verb from the presentation), and then clearly state their point of view in a sentence.

Discuss the ideas students came up with.

Lesson C-2: Understanding the Elements of Argumentation

Purpose
This lesson is designed to help students understand the basic structures used in argumentative writing and editorial articles. It will familiarize them with claims, reasons, assumptions, and introduce them to the concept of evidence.

Materials
Presentation with 7 Slides
Understanding Assumptions Worksheet
Sample NY Times Article: U.S. Should Not Resume Building Nuclear Weapons
Sample NY Times Article: Doctors, Drugs, and Disclosure
Sample NY Times Article: Bankers and their Salaries
Argument Analysis Worksheet

Procedure
Use the worksheet from the C-1 Lesson to get students talking. Ask them to share their point of view on an issue they think is important. Then ask them to give you one reason why they think this. This will lead in to the presentation and later activities.

Give students the 7-slide presentation on claims, reasons, and assumptions. With each slide of the presentation, be sure to ask students for examples of what is being discussed on the slide.

Give the students the worksheet on Understanding Assumptions. Have them work alone or with a partner to discuss the possible assumptions for each statement. Then, discuss students’ answers as a large group. This lesson could easily be made to cover two days by splitting it at this point.

Choose one of the editorials from the NY Times listed above. Note: You will need to create a free account with the NY Times to access these articles. Just click on the link above, and you’ll be prompted to create an account. Read the article out loud to the class. Use Worksheet C-2 to have them determine the editorial’s claim, its reason(s), and its assumption(s). Discuss what evidence the writer provided and whether or not that evidence adequately addressed reader’s concerns about the editorial’s assumptions and whether or not the evidence effectively supported the writer’s reasons. For further discussion about the art of argumentation, ask students the final question on Worksheet C-2 about how the writer structured the argument and what effect that structure has on readers. To make this lesson last longer, repeat with a second sample article.

Lesson C-3: Approaches to Argumentation

Purpose
This lesson is designed to familiarize students with four different approaches used in arguments: emotion, values, character, and facts and reason. This lesson could easily be tied in to what students already know about ethos, pathos, and logos if they have already studied those concepts in another class.

Materials
Presentation with 5 Slides
Argumentation Examples Worksheet
YouTube Video of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech”

Procedure
Post the following questions on the board to get students thinking and talking about this lesson’s topic.  When have you seen emotion used effectively in an argument?  When have you seen logic used effectively in an argument?  Ask students what made the logical or emotional approach effective for their particular examples.

Give students the 5-slide presentation on argumentation approaches. Provide the students Argumentation Examples Worksheet to work on while they watch the presentation. This slideshow will cover emotional and logical arguments, as well as values-based arguments and character-based arguments. At the end of each slide, ask students to write examples of where they have seen each approach used effectively.

Post a series of topics on the board: gun control, euthanasia, hybrid cars, drilling for offshore oil, speed limits, etc… Ask students to come up with examples of how each of the four approaches could be used when arguing each topic.

Optional Second Day Activity
Make another copy of the Argumentation Examples Worksheet. Play the linked YouTube video of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech.” Use the Worksheet to make note of how Dr. King uses all four approaches to argumentation in his speech. Have students share their examples. Ask them to discuss which examples were particularly effective.

Lesson C-4: Using Evidence Effectively

Purpose
This lesson is designed to teach students about the different types of evidence that can be used in argumentative writing.  It will also introduce students to the concepts of rebuttals and qualifiers.

Materials
Presentation with 7 Slides
Evidence Worksheet
Sample NY Times Article: Gun Control Bill in Washington, D.C.
Sample NY Times Article: No More Plastic Bags
Sample NY Times Article: Voting Machine Problems
Sample NY Times Article: Churches and Politics

Procedure
To get students started thinking about the lesson’s topic, pose a hypothetical situation to them:  If you want to convince your parents to buy you a car, what would be the most effective way to do this.  As students respond, try to lead them to the concept that they’ll need to provide their parents with some evidence that they actually need a car, whether that evidence be fact-based or anecdotal.

Give students the 7-slide presentation.  As you go through each slide, ask students to provide you with examples that might demonstrate the ideas in the slides.

Give students the Evidence Worksheet; this worksheet provides 10 hypothetical arguments.  Have students work with a partner and, first, determine what type of evidence will be most effective and, second, come up with a specific, hypothetical example of evidence that would be effective.  When students are finished with all ten, ask them to share –– you should get some good discussion on the evidence that will work best with each topic.  Ask students to explain what their thinking process was in choosing their hypothetical evidence.  You could also pose the questions, “What type of evidence would be least effective?  Why?”

Optional Second Day Activity
Have students read one of the linked articles above from the New York Times.  Note: You will need to create a free account with the NY Times to access these articles. Just click on the link above, and you’ll be prompted to create an account. Ask them to underline the evidence they see as you read the article to them.  Ask them to classify this evidence.  Have them analyze where in the argument the writer used evidence, how the writer connected his/her evidence to his/her reasons and assumptions, and whether or not the evidence was effective.

Lesson C-5: Recognizing Logical Fallacies

Purpose
This lesson is designed to help make students aware of some of the common logical fallacies that plague argumentative writing.

Materials
Presentation with 15 Slides
Logical Fallacies Worksheet

Procedure
Start your lesson by either writing a statement with a logical fallacy on the board or reading one out loud to the class. Use this one or any other that you can think of: “We can’t allow terminal patients to die without doing everything to save them. If we were to allow that, next we would be permitting euthanasia, and then we would start killing people outright whenever we thought they were no longer valuable to society.” Ask the class what they think of the statement. If they recognize the flawed logic, ask them to explain why the logic is flawed.

Give the students the C-5 Presentation. With each example, ask students to explain the flaw in the logic, and ask them to come up with a similar example of their own.

Give students the C-5 Worksheet. It might be effective to have them do the worksheet in pairs or small groups –– that way they’ll discuss and talk about the ideas.

Go over the answers to the C-5 Worksheet.

A good homework assignment would be to ask students to read the letters to the editor in the local newspaper and bring in an example of a logical fallacy for the next class session.