Lesson Two

Aim: What school related topics can we brainstorm to include in our ESL 2 News Press?

Instructional Objectives: Students will be able to brainstorm ideas for school newspaper; collectively choose topics which will be included in school newspaper; demonstrate understanding of paraphrasing by paraphrasing a short article.

Materials: Poster board paper, Handout of short article

Do Now: Answer the following questions:

• Why do people read newspapers?
• What information do people find in newspapers?
• What is the difference between fact and opinion?

Motivation: Have students imagine that the principal of Christopher Columbus High School has chosen the ESL 2 class to write and distribute a new school newspaper for all the students at Columbus. The students will make all the decisions based on how to write the school newspaper. Ask students the following questions:

• Why will students want to read the school newspaper?
• How can we get students interested to read our newspaper?
• What do you think students will look for in the school newspaper?

Instructional Activities:

1. Review homework from the previous night. As a class, students will fill out "Newspaper Story Format" from the website:http://readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=249 using the article from the previous night's homework.

2. Illicit students' answers from the Do Now

3. Students will share answers for the "Motivation Questions".

4. From the "Motivation Questions", students will be placed into groups of four. Each group will brainstorm ideas/topics appropriate for the school newspaper. Students will log their answers on big poster board paper.  (examples of Topics:  Sports, Entertainment, Travel, Fashion, Current Events, School News)

5. As a class, students will share and evaluate each groups ideas. The teacher will have a general list of ideas/topics written on the board.

6. Once the students are finished sharing their ideas, the class will review and edit their ideas/topics. Teacher will circle only the ideas/topics the class collectively agrees will be appropriate for the newspaper.

7. Once topics are chosen, teacher/students will decide which topics each student will write about.

8. Students will now be placed into their designated group. Students will be grouped by topic, so each group will have 2-3 students. Each student will be responsible for writing an article under the group's topic.

9. Since students will be starting their research the following day, it is a good idea to give students a mini-lesson on paraphrasing. (Teachers can refer to website on paraphrasing:  http://wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/QuotingSources.html

Write a sentence on the board. Ask students to change sentence into their own words, without loosing the meaning of the sentence.

10.  Have students take out news article from yesterday's homework.  Repeat with several different sentences from article.. Ask students the importance of paraphrasing while doing research. Write their answers on the board using a web organizer.

Homework assignment: Paraphrase a short article

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