News in the Real World Directions

News in the Real World!

About every other week your homework for Reading 6 will be to read various news sources and find an article that interests you. You will prepare a 2-3 minute oral summary to share with you classmates on Tuesdays.

Summarizing is the key ability to master for success in academic reading and writing.

In order to prepare yourself to write a summary, you must answer the wh- questions:

1.      Who?

2.      What?

3.      Where?

4.      When?

5.      Why?

6.      How?

Directions: Prepare a 2-3 minute oral summary of an article you read.

Include the main ideas of the article and explain why you selected the article to      read (answer the pertinent “wh- questions”).

Additionally, you should identify 1 new “bling” word in the article, find the definition, and teach it to your group.

There are many positive advantages to this bi-weekly homework assignment:

1.      You practice the key academic skill of summarizing

2.      You become more familiar with reading authentic “real world” English that is aimed at native English speakers

3.      We all get to keep up with current affairs

4.      I get to see what kinds of things you find interesting

Here are some sample  news resources:

http://www.cbs8.com/ (local San Diego news)

www.cnn.com (American news)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ (world news)

http://english.aljazeera.net/ (news with a focus on the Middle East/Arab peninsula)