This week's current event is taking a quick break from the Presidential campaign to talk about a news story that we thought might be interesting to our middle schoolers.
We're going to write less this week that normally for a current event - instead of the Chain of Main Ideas, we're going to write two central ideas, aka WHO+WHAT+WHY sentences. If you don't know how to write one, there are directions to help you below.
1. Read the informational article here and write a WHO+WHAT+WHY sentence that expresses the central idea of the article.
2. Read this second nonfiction piece on the same topic - how is it different from the first one? How is the author's purpose different? How does that affect what's is in the article? Write a WHO+WHAT+WHY sentence for this one, too.
When you are done, you will have read two articles and have written two (longish) sentences.
Things to Think about/That We May Discuss
Think about these issues - you DON'T need to write or type answers to them.
- You know the difference between facts and opinions. Notice that one of these pieces contains the author's opinions and one does not. Why do you think that is?
- Notice that when writing the directions, I used two different terms to name the readings - one is called an "article" and one is not. What accounts for this?
- This article is about France - so what does it have to do with us? Why care about topics that are concerned with French schoolchildren? Why care?
- Notice that the second article adds something as a "Bonus" meaning that the author didn't think that she wanted to simply make it another paragraph. Why do you feel that she labeled this part "Bonus"?
Great article! Hmmmm.
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