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Prepare enough copies of a photo from News for You to give one to each of your students. Before the students read the story from which the photo came, ask them to write stories to fit the photo. Imagination is welcome here! When they are done, they can read their stories to each other. And then they can read the original story that went with the photo. It can be interesting to see the different interpretations.
Pick an article from the latest issue of News for You. Then write about the topic as if the date were one year from today. Explain what has happened by that date.
Read the headline of an article to the class. Have students predict what the article is about. Brainstorm as a group to find out what they already know about the topic. Then have the students read the article. Discuss what what new information they have learned.
Cut an article from News for You in half, then make enough copies of each piece so every learner will have one half. Separate the class into two groups, and give each group a different half of the story. Ask each group to read their portion of the article and write down details that are missing.
Put the learners into small groups with others who have the same half. Ask them to talk about the article, to try to fill in any missing information, and to compile a list of questions they want answered about the article.
Pair up students who have different halves of the article. Have them talk about the article so they discover the whole story, but without looking back at their original half of the article.
Finally, have the learners go back to their original groups. Have the groups write a summary of the entire article without looking back at it.
This activity provides practice in anticipating content.
Choose a News for You photo from which students might be able to guess an article's topic. Show students only the photo. Then ask each of them to write a sentence in which they predict the content of the related story. Encourage them to use their imaginations — this does not have to be a test of current events. After they share their sentences with fellow students, have them read the related article. Vote on which sentence best predicts the story content. You may also want to vote on the most imaginative prediction.
This activity gets students to think about a person and share what they know before they read about him or her.
Select a well-known person from a current issue of News for You. Make sure it is someone your students are likely to know something about. Write the name on the board. Divide the class into pairs or small groups and ask them to share what they know about the person. You can use the 5W questions: Who, What, Where, When, and Why. Give the students a time limit for gathering information. Ask each group to choose a recorder.
When time is up, the groups share what they gathered with the class. Write the information on the board as each group's recorder responds.
The activity generates vocabulary related to the person. It also gives students good background for reading the article itself and discussing the issues it raises.