Mike Judd

Reading Lesson Plan

The Newspaper

Level: Adult
Proficiency Level: Intermediate
Class time: approx. 60 min.

Objectives:


To open a new world of reading up to the students through t he written media.
To give the students some insights and techniques about reading the newspaper.
To challenge them to get in the habit of reading and utilizing the newspaper so ultimately they can improve their reading ability outside the classroom.

Materials:

  1. A comic strip for the Pre-amble on a transparency.
  2. The front page of an edition of a newspaper (or any page with lots of different headlines on it.
  3. Different articles for each student to skim through (these should be relatively short inlength.)
  4. Copies of an article for each student or a transparency of the article so all can see.

    Pre-amble:

    Have a funny or interesting comic (Garfield, The Far Side, etc.) on a transparency that thestudents can look at while they come in and get settled. It could be related to the English language, the culture, or just good reading practice. Explain the comic when classbegins and see if everyone understood. (Time limit: 2-3 minutes)

    Warm-up:

    Enjoy a stress-free chat with the students about something that has happened recently and has appeared in the newspaper. It could be something local or nation-wide, violent or scandalous, but it should be of interest to the students. (Time limit: 5-7 minutes)

    Introduction:

    Ask the students where they would go to find out important things that have happened.
    Discuss the vast amount of information that is available in the newspaper.
    Discuss the benefits of reading the newspaper.
    Find out what areas of the newspaper they are familiar with:
    Headlines, local, national, and international news, lifestyles, comics, business, employment, weather, sports, classifieds, and more.
    Explain that today you are going to explore many of these things in the newspaper. (Time limit: 5-10 minutes)

    Activity:


    Skimming. Finding something that interests you in the newspaper requires that you use this skill. Everyone does it to overlook that which is not of interest and to find thatwhich is interesting.
    Have a font page of a newspaper available so that each student can look at the page and tell what interests them most.
    Scanning and Gisting. Not always do we read every single word in an article or story. Many times we quickly go through them to get the main ideas.
    Have an article ready to give to each student to review. Give them exactly 1 minute to scan over the article and guess at the main points and ideas. (Time limit: 5-10 minutes)

    Activity:


    Go over an article from the newspaper in its entirety in class.
    Preview the vocabulary they will encounter or have certain words marked to go over while reading. (The teacher can read or the students can take turns.)
    After the reading students can get into groups to discuss their reactions and opinions. (Time limit: 20-25 minutes)

    Evaluation:


    Ask follow-up questions periodically to make sure the students are understanding.
    Have each student present to the class the main points or ideas of the article from the scanning exercise.
    Questions to the class or in survey format could be given to the class to find out:
    1. How they might benefit from reading the newspaper.
    2. How they have benefited from reading the newspaper
    3. Have they been reading on their own.
    4. An actual graded assignment could be administered as part of the curriculum involving these skills.

    Application:


    Each student will pick an article out of the newspaper that night and be prepared to give a summary of what they read as well as why they chose that specific article.
    They should look up any new words they do not understand or know.
    Five new words should be written on separate note cards including the definition, its part of speech, andthe sentence it was found in.