Creator: Vox Media | visit site
Grade Range: 6 - 11
Find thoughtful articles written to explain today’s news, especially the stories that are most difficult to understand. The article topics vary widely and include offerings from sports, politics, pop culture, public policy, world affairs, food, business, health, and many other topics. Just as the news may include tough or adult topics, so may Vox. You might want to preview or direct less mature young people to a specific article instead of allowing them to browse the entire site.
In the Classroom
Share specific articles from this site -- or a collection of them-- for students to gain experience with informational texts that demystify the headlines they are seeing on the TV screen crawl. Use examples from this site as models for student groups to do research to explain a science or economics topic that has been in the news and share it with peers as a digital poster showing the top ten things they should know about X. Use a tool such as Padlet, <a href="/single.cfm?id=10007">reviewed here</a>, to create a "poster" of sticky notes. Not only will your students gain experience reading for understanding, but also choosing the most important things to know from an article. Use this approach for students to research and share articles in health class (such as on new vaccines or discoveries) or on national issues during an election cycle. Be sure to include this link on your class web page for upper grade students to find current events articles (along with a disclaimer that some topics may be controversial).
At Home
Mark this one in your favorites for your preteen or teen to make sense out of current events, both for class assignments and for family discussion. When he/she asks you to explain a news story, this is a great place to look together to understand what really happened and why.
Tags
news,
Subjects
Current Events, Engineering/Technology, Government/Civics: U.S, Health, Reading, Science, Social Studies, Social Studies,