Homework: Sample Short-Term Online Assignment

Topic: Is college still worth the students' money and time?

Subject: Current event

Grade Level: Advanced to high advanced

Resource type: Online news article

Teacher’s Note: The internet is a great source of news articles and current events because they are up-to-date, in fact, as soon as an event unfolds, interesting, varied, and authentic. There are also many sources such as the online version of televisions, radios, newspapers, and blogs (such as nyt.com). If you plan to use online sources, make sure you use the simplified version or you consider the academic level of your students.

Instructions: Go to http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/us/as-college-graduates-cluster-some-cities-are-left-behind.html?_r=1&hp

Fill in the table below with factual elements of the news story (refer to the previous class we had on identifying the different parts of a news story).

Who
When
Where
What	1. 2. 3.
Why
How

General Idea Questions:

1. What is the lead sentence of the news?

2. Is this a straight-forward news article or is it also editorialized to a certain degree? Support your answer.

3. What is the main idea of the story?

4. Do you agree that this “college gap” or the absence of it in the cities mentioned an important factor in the economy of the country? Consider first the question of the relevance of college (which we discussed three meetings ago).

Send your answers to: teacherjohn@gmail.com