Each week, students will be reading and responding to age-appropriate local and global sources of news. Articles are selected each week so that they are timely, and cover topics such as: sports, world news, history and government. We will spend class time reading the article together and then students will have an opportunity to respond - either verbally or in writing. The articles themselves will have a range of vocabulary. Some articles will be harder than others so that we can practice decoding and context clues. 
Each session, students will respond to articles in writing with Reader Response questions which ask the student to offer some critical analysis of the news, as well as offering some evidence of the practical application of the readings.  Students will have an opportunity to engage and exchange ideas with classmates. While I will be a guide and gatekeeper, students will be sharing opinions and expressing how they feel about timely events in a secure and supportive environment.  One focus each week will be allowing each student to have a voice and an opportunity to read an article or express their opinion. Readers each week will be rotated so that every student is participating and sharing in some way. 
In addition, we will cover media literacy concerns: how to easily spot misinformation, and ways to tell if a website is biased or even fake. We will review how to look for clues that a website is not what it appears to be, as well as review websites that students can trust to use for their research and homework. 
A focal point of discussion will be non-fiction writing and the difference between writing for entertainment (fiction) and writing to inform (non-fiction). Students will debate, discuss, and interview as we end the course by constructing our very own newspaper with non-fiction articles written by the students themselves. This will be done using the online resource: Bookcreator.com. This free resource also allows for the students to purchase a copy of the final product.