In this ongoing course, students will read non-fiction articles of the week focused on current topics. Before class, students will be asked to read the article posted in the classroom and come prepared to discuss the topics together in class. In each session, students will work through different close-reading strategy skills that we model in our discussion (and modeled by the teacher on screen) to help them deepen their understanding of the non-fiction topic while working on analyzing the article. 

Current Year: 2024: 
Week 1 (January 1st - 5th): New Brain Treatments and Anesthesia
Week 2 (January 8th - 12th): Hacking
Week 3 (January 15th - 19th): Tires and Pollution
Week 4 (January 22nd - 26th): Endangered Species
Week 5 (January 29th - February 2nd): Is it Doomsday?
Week 6 (February 5th - 9th): The Academy Awards
Week 7 (February 12th - 16th): The United Nations
Week 8 (February 19th - 23rd): Airplane Safety
Week 9 (February 26th - March 1st): Professional Athletes Participation Choice
Week 10 (March 4th - 8th): The Crisis in Sudan
Week 11 (March 11th - 15th): India's Growing Infrastructure
Week 12 (March 18th - 22nd): Australia's Spiders Connect Us to Genetic Information
Week 13 (March 25th - 29th): The U.S. Senate Sets to Vote to Ban TikTok
Week 14 (April 1st - 5th): World Prisons 
Week 15 (April 8th - 12th): NO CLASS, OUT OF THE COUNTRY
Week 16 (April 12th - 19th): The Dirty Dozen Foods
Week 17 (April 22nd - 26th): Haiti's Gang Crisis
Week 18 (April 29th - May 3rd): The Happiest Country in the World
Week 19 (May 6th - 10th): The New Administrative Capital of Egypt
Week 20 (May 13th - 17th):  First South American Climate Victims Win Major Lawsuit
Week 21 (May 20th - 24th): Returning Artifacts to Peru
Week 22 (May 27th - 31st): Horse Racing
Week 23 (June 3rd - 7th): Guacamole - Real or Fake? (How choosing can help save Mexico from a water crisis)
Week 24 (June 10th - 14th): Turning CO2 into Rocks - Iceland
Week 25 (June 17th - 21st): Canada's Zombie Fires
Week 26 (June 24th - 28th): Windpower and Windmills
Week 27 (July 1st - 5th): NO CLASS
Week 28 (July 8th - 12th): Banning Cell Phones in Schools - A Federal Issue?
Week 29 (July 15th - 19th): Homeless Peoples' Rights
Week 30 (July 22nd - 26th): Chocolate Shortage and Rising Prices
Week 31 (July 29th - August 2nd): When a Town Becomes a Tourist Attraction
Week 32 (August 5th - 9th): The Paris Olympics
Week 33 (August 12th - 16th): Is College Worth It?
Week 34 (August 19th - 23rd): NO CLASS
Week 35 (August 26th - 30th): Sleep Changes in Generations
Week 36 (September 2nd - 6th): Unrest and Protests in Kenya
Week 37 (September 9th - 15th): Tigers in Thailand
Week 38 (September 16th - 21st): Panda Tourism
Week 39 (September 23rd - 29th): American Football Safety (And Other Sports)
Week 40 (September 30th - October 6th): Cheetos Bag May Destroy and a National Park
Week 41 (October 7th - 13th): Violence in Schools - When is Enough Enough?
Week 42 (October 14th - 20th): Halloween, Day of the Dead
Week 43 (October 21st - 27th): Invisible Skin, How Science Experiments with Mice
Week 44 (October 28th - November 3rd): Google Ads and a Monopoly, the Company is Being Sued
Week 45 (November 4th - 10th): Fleeing Migrants to Europe
Week 46 (November 11th - 17th): Venezuela's Opposition Leader Seeks Asylum
Week 47 (November 18th - 24th): Israel has Banned the U.N., What That Means for Civilians
Week 48 (November 25th - December 1st: NO CLASS
Week 49 (December 2nd - 8th): Spain's Floods Raise Questions - Why Aren't Lifesaving Resources Available to Everybody?
Week 50 (December 9th - 15th): COVID's Surprising POTENTIAL Positive
Week 51 (December 16th - 22nd): To be Determined (End of Year Related Article)
Week 52 (December 23rd - 29th): NO CLASS

THE START OF 2025:
Week 1 (December 30th - January 5th): Singapore's New Nature Skyscrapers
Week 2 (January 6th - 12th): Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles Highlight Mental Health
Week 3 (January 13th - 19th): Are We Headed Toward World War III?
Week 4: (January 20th - 26th): "Free-Range" Parenting
Week 5: (January 27th - February 2nd): Clean Energy Production is Better Than Ever
To Be Determined!

For previous article topics, please see the "Teacher Expertise" portion of this class description!