CURRENT EVENTS

Bellefonte Area Middle School

8th Grade - Social Studies

2009-2010 School Year

GOAL: The goal of the current event assignment is for students to become aware of what is happening in their local, state, and federal governments. In doing this assignment, students will apply what they have learned in the classroom along with what is happening in the real world of government and politics.

DIRECTIONS:

1. At the beginning of each marking period, each student will be assigned a current event (local, state, national, or global).

2. Student will be assigned a day in the nine weeks in which their current event is due.

3. Current events need to be selected from media resources within a TWO WEEK time frame from which their presentation will occur. Students need to avoid repeating current events that have already been chosen by other students.

4. Current events needed to chosen from a credible online or print resource. Acceptable forms of resources would include: newspapers, news magazines, publications of news agencies, or official news agency websites.

5. A typed written summary of the article needs to be provided along with a black and white copy of the article.

6. The written portion of this assignment will include a summary of the article in your own words concluding with why you feel this particular article is relevant to the class. A template can be found on the back of this sheet to assist you in the writing process. The summary should not be less than a half of page in length but not more than a full page. (Please use a standard 12 point font)

7. Words that are unfamiliar to students in the article need to be identified and defined at the end of the written summary. (Up to 5 Terms)

8. Students will need to be prepared to answer follow-up questions after giving their oral presentation of the article to the class.

GRADING CRITERIA – TOTAL OF 20 POINTS

The following will be considered when grading this project:

Written Summary (Grammar/Spelling/Accuracy) – 10 Points

Relevance – 5 Points

Oral Presentation – 5 Point

Current Event Template

(This is to be used when developing your written summary. It is not to be turned in.)

Title of Article:

Author:

Date:

Source: (Link to Source)

Article / Summary/Comments / Vocabulary
1st Paragraph
2nd Paragraph
3rd Paragraph
4th Paragraph
5th Paragraph
6th Paragraph
Relevance or Importance To Class