Created by Mr. Ben Wellenreiter
INTRODUCTION:
Every day, countless news stories make it to
the editors of major mass media outlets, (television, newspaper, radio). Now it
is your job to decide what stories make it to the front page. As consumers of
massive amounts of information, we all must be able to discern what is
important and what should be passed on to readers.
TASK:
For this short WebQuest, you must scan
multiple news sources, select news articles pertaining to World Events, United
States Events, Illinois Events, and Local Events. You are to copy the first two
paragraphs of the story, cite your Internet sources, and then explain in one
paragraph, why this story is important for members of our community to know.
There must be at least one photo in this document, with its source also cited.
It is important to cite sources because we need to know that the information is
coming from a reliable source. Cite your source right after the copied text so
we know what words are yours and what words belong to the source.
PROCESS:
The websites provided below give all types
of news. It is your job to discriminate between world, national, Illinois, and local
news. Read through these websites, select a news article for each of the areas,
copy the headline and two paragraphs, cite your source, then write a paragraph
explaining why you selected this particular story and how it affects people in
our community. You will be graded on the correct number of stories, your
rationale for selecting them, your explanation about how the story pertains to
the local community, your citing of sources, and the one required photograph.
This assignment will be no more than three pages in length. News editors
must always be conscious of space; therefore, if this document is over three
pages in length, penalties will apply.
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RESOURCES:
· BBC
World News http://news.bbc.co.uk/
· World
News Network http://www.worldnews.com/
· ABC
World News http://abcnews.go.com/
· CBS
News http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/home/main100.shtml
· MSNBC http://www.msnbc.com/news/default.asp?0ct=-34o
· National
Public Radio News http://www.npr.org/
· WEEK
NBC News http://www.week.com/
· WMBD
CBS News http://216.87.159.48/news.asp
· WHOI
ABC News http://www.hoinews.com/news
· Peoria
Journal Star http://www.pjstar.com/
· Daily
Pantagraph http://www.pantagraph.com/
EVALUATION:
Points Possible
3
Copied World News Story
2 Cited Source
5 Explanatory Paragraph
3 Copied National News Story
2 Cited Source
5 Explanatory Paragraph
3 Copied Illinois News Story
2 Cited Source
5 Explanatory Paragraph
3 Copied Local News Story
2 Cited Source
5 Explanatory Paragraph
3 Photograph pertaining to one of the news
stories
2 Cited Source
/45 Points
Possible
CONCLUSION:
It
is an important skill to be able to recognize important news stories and relate
them to your every day life. By compiling both global and local events, you
have decided what news is important to you and your community. Being able to
describe why your news stories are important shows that you are able to relate
to people and places perhaps thousands of miles away.