Using News Articles to Write Gists in Social Studies

Students finding newspapers on Worldbook Online

I did this same lesson last semester with the students in Mr. Johnson's social studies classes. I thought it was very successful, so I wanted to share it with you. Everyday when students arrive in Mr. Johnson's room, they begin the day with a gist. They are suppose to find a news article on-line and then write 10 words summarizing the article that they read. For the first few weeks of the semester the students were allowed to go to any site they chose to find news articles. With the world at their fingertips, the students still selected CNN, BBC or Fox News ninety-five percent of the time.

I know that I am a dinosaur, but I explain to the kids when they visit the library for this lesson that I was lucky to have access to my local newspapers in my school library much less newspapers from India or Japan. I then show them how I have collated a number of sites that they can use to find newspapers and news magazines from across the globe, many in English. To keep the students from reverting back to their old ways, Mr. Johnson requires the students to use one of these sites twice a week. The first four links below are pages with links and lists of 100s of sites, and I open each one of these to explain how it works. The last five links are individual news sites that the students may not know, and I think that they might like to read. This list of news sites can be found on the PFTSTA Library website. By the way, the students' favorite is the Newspaper Map because you get a great visual world map and can easily find English publications from almost anywhere.

Let me know in the comments, if you have any suggestions to add to this list.

Need News? 
Find a link to newspapers from around the world on WorldBook Online. (available by subscription only)
Find newspapers from around the world in many different languages from OnlineNewspapers.
Find a list and links of some of the leading news magazines from the left and the right points of view.
The Newspaper Map highlights 10,000 newspapers around the world and translates into English for you.
ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.The Huffington Post has a special edition just for teens.
The Daily Beast is an online news magazine brought to you by Newsweek which is no longer in print.
The New York Times online edition allows you to read 10 articles for free every month.
US News and World Report, digital edition only, this magazine is no longer in print


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