Mr. Thomas

Objective:

The Current Events Journal will improve students’ summarizing, analyzing, and grammatical skills. This weekly assignment will keep students abreast of current events and breaking news, and will help students cultivate global awareness. This assignment will also prepare students for their End of Course test and it also requires students to familiarize themselves with MLA style bibliographic citations.

 

Assignment:

Choose an article each week from the following: The New York Times, NPR, BBC News Newsweek, Time, New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, Forbes, The Economist, The Atlantic, National Geographic, or Scientific American. The article you choose must have been published in the current month or the previous month, but no later. I will usually assign a theme for the week (for example, “This week, you must read an article about politics/the environment/ education,” etc.). When I do this, I will let you know.

 

1. On the top line of the paper, you will include a citation for the magazine article. This will be in MLA (Modern Language Association) format.

2. On the top half of the paper, you will write a summary of the article you have read. You must include a small quote from the article in your summary. A “small” quote can be words or parts of a sentence. Avoid quoting complete sentences.

3. On the bottom half of the paper, you will write commentary. You can either comment on the content of the article (what the author has to say) or the form/style (how the author says it). If you comment on the content, you may be defending, challenging, or qualifying the author’s claim/point/thesis/interpretation; if you comment on the author’s form/style, you may be commenting on the author’s diction, syntax, tone, imagery, organization, appeals, etc.

 

*You will complete these assignments on a separate sheet of paper, but when graded and returned, they should be organized in the writing section of your binder.