Classroom Activities - High School

Language Arts

Job Information - 1:1
Skill: making workplace decisions
Have the students examine the help wanted ads for information on available jobs. Based on the research the student should prepare a job fair brochure that includes job opportunities, salary, working conditions, hours and benefits.

Get Packing - 1:3
Skills: scan and evaluate for specific information
Your students are going on an extended trip. What other supplies do your students think they would need to make the trip? Students can browse through the newspaper looking for five items they would absolutely want to have with them if they were planning a trip like this. Putting aside size and cost constraints, which five items found in the newspaper, would students want? Have them choose five and write a rationale explaining why they chose each.

Comic Characters - 1:5
Skill: respond personally, analytically and critically to texts
It may be fun for students to analyze a comic character they like to see just what it is that makes it appealing. Have them list the character's traits - for example - lazy, cheerful, curious. They should tell why they think the character exhibits each trait. Then have them find someone in the newspaper who possesses similar traits and write a comparison between the person and the character.

Social Studies

Character Hall of Fame - I 2:2
Skill: identify and explain how individuals in history demonstrated good character and personal virtue
Scan the newspaper for stories about honesty, courage, patriotism or other admirable qualities. Share some of those stories with your class. Ask students which people they would nominate for a Hall of Fame.

Optimistic Kids - I 3:2
Skills: formulate how different choices could have led to different consequences
One of the keys to maintaining an optimistic attitude is the ability to turn a negative situation into a positive one. Assign students to find a story in the newspaper that has a negative spin. Ask students to write an epilogue to the story turning the negative into a positive result.

Human Rights - I 4:3
Skill: evaluating the responses of individuals to violations of human dignity
Have students scan the world or international news section of the newspaper and identify stories pertaining to human rights. Have the students identify what specific rights are being violated and how the conflict can be resolved. They can write a plan of action that might solve the problem.

Mathematics

Graphing the Stock Market - I 1:2
Skill: analyze, interpret and translate among representations of patterns, including graphs
If your students selected stocks based on their interests, which stocks would students choose? Have them select five stocks, based on what they see in the newspaper, and monitor them for a week to see if they would have made or lost money. They can create graphs showing how each stock performed each day. Have them write a paragraph predicting what will happen to their stocks, based on their performance.

Area and Perimeter - II 1:7
Skill: use shape to describe the physical world and to solve problems
Here is some geometry practice for your students. Have them find unusual geometric shapes pictured in the newspaper and then write the formula to find the area and perimeter of each.

Women and Men in Sports - II 3:1
Skill: select and use appropriate tools to measure
Have students make predictions about the percentage of coverage in the sports section of the newspaper that pertains to women. Then assign different groups of students to compute the number of column inches of text on each page of the sports section. Have them count the number of inches devoted to men's sports and the number of inches devoted to women's sports. What is the percentage of each?

Science

Rating Healthy Products - I 1:1
Skill: Develop questions or problems for investigation that can be answered empirically
Have students skim the newspaper to find five products that promote fitness. Have them rate the five from 1 to 5 with 5 being most effective. The students can make a graph to show their results. Then they can then design a newspaper ad to sell the most effective product. Have students reflect on the importance of being fit and what they do to safeguard their health.

Business Development - I 1:3
Skill: design and conduct scientific investigations
The students can use the business section to find an example of development that might cause change in the ecology of an area. They can list the advantages the development may have for the economy of the area as well as the disadvantages this type of development may have on the ecology of the area. They can draw cartoons to send a strong message to the audience. Have them examine the editorial cartoons in the newspaper for models.

Advances in Science - I 1:7
Skill: gather and synthesize information from books and other sources
There are often stories of medical or scientific advancement in the news. Allow students time to skim the newspaper to find such a story and to write a brief 5 W (who, what, when, where, why) summary of the article.