News Article vs Editorial
Objective: SWBAT differentiate between news articles and editorials, and analyze author’s bias by determining a central idea and analyzing its development citing textual evidence and summarizing the text using SOAPSTone.
Big Idea: What is the author’s bias based upon?
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Discussion
As a review, we began considering the difference between fact and opinion.
Fact – can be proven right or wrong
Opinion – one’s feelings about a topic
Then we progressed to differentiating between a news article and an editorial.
News article –presents both sides of an issue without bias
Editorial – presents one side of an issue and tries to convince the readers to agree with the writer (author’s bias)
Discussion also included defining “pro” and “con”/ for or against
Next year, I intend to provide a reference sheet for students to glue in their notebooks, so they have it available for classwork or at home. In this way, valuable class time will not be wasted writing notes that could be better used for class interactions.
Before reading, I had students number the paragraphs (see Reflection) and had the students noted that "City Schools Cut Parents' Lifeline" was a news article (it presents both sides of the issue). As a class, we read this news article.
I chunked the reading so students could mark the text for fact and opinion - labeling "F" or "O" in the margins. After reading, we discussed how there were many facts included in this article, however, when speaking with individuals in the real world, often their statements are based upon opinion.
Students then completed the comparison SOAPSTone chart with a partner. If you are unfamiliar with this analysis technique please review the SOAPSTone Power Point
After completion of the chart, we shared information as a class so students’ analysis can be detailed.
