ARTICLE OF THE WEEK FOOD FOR THOUGHT FACULTY BOOK

Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge. To help build my students prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into realworld text. Below you will find the articles I assigned* this year to my 9th grade students. Please note, all articles are subject to the copyright protections stipulated by the original source. "Is Lowering the Drinking Age a Good Idea?" by Jessica Pauline Ogilvie for the Los Angeles Times "Cast Adrift in the Milky Way, Billions of Planets, All Alone" by Dennis Overbye for the New York Times "Police Sweep Arrests Parents for Kids' Skipping School" by Greg Hardesty for The Orange County Register "A Bin Laden Hunter on Four Legs" by Gardiner Harris for the New York Times "Obama: Al-Qaida Head Osama Bin Laden Is Dead" the Associated Press "PlayStation Network Security Breach Will Cost Sony Much More than Money" by Alex Pham for Los Angeles Times "Big Fish in Troubled Waters" by Stephen Ornes for scienceforkids.org "Bryant Says Homophobic Slur 'Out of Frustration' During Game" by J. Michael Falgoust for USA Today "Obama Signs Short Term Funding" CNN "Texas Man Gets First Full Face Transplant in U.S." the Associated Press "Libya Bombing Campaign Targets Kadafi's Air, Ground Forces" by Borzou Daragahi and Brian Bennett for the Los Angeles Times "Japan's Nuclear Crisis Widens" by Mark Magnier, Barbara Demick and Laura King for the Los Angeles Times "On the Left Hand, There Are No Easy Answers" by Perri Klass, M.D. for the New York Times "Fighting Over Food" The Week "Kids Who Skip School Are Tracked by GPS" by Eric Carpenter for The Orange County Register "After Egypt, Who Should the U.S. Back?" The Week "Losing the Race for Intelligence" by Leonard Pitts for the Miami Herald

"President Obama's State of the Union Address" posted on whitehouse.gov Note: No AoW this week due to semester final exams. "Long Spells at Screen Create Health Risk" posted on socialstudiesforkids.com "Looking Beyond 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'" by Ben Adler for Newsweek "The Energy of an Internet Search" by Alexandra Ossola for sciencenewsforkids.org "Congress Considers the DREAM Act" Wikipedia "Does the Constitution Have a Heart for Boobies?" Los Angeles Times "Captive Audience: Has Advertising in School Gone Too Far?" by Andra Ford for Time "Teaching for America" by Thomas Friedman for the New York Times "Should You Be Snuggling With Your Cellphone?" by Randall Stross for the New York Times "How Writing By Hand Makes Kids Smarter" The Week "Slumber By the Numbers" posted on sciencenewsforkids.org "The History of Halloween" posted on socialstudiesforkids.com "Faraway Planet Could Support Life" by Stephen Ornes on sciencenewsforkids.org "French Burqa Ban Clears Last Legal Obstacle" posted on CNN.com "Police Probe Rutgers Student Suicide Link to Sex Tape" posted on today.msnbc.msn.com "The Tell-Tale Bacteria" by Stephen Ornece for sciencenewsforkids.org "The Internet Is Spying on You" The Week "Obama Remembers September 11 with Message of Tolerance" CNN "Food Safety Tips for the Budget-Conscious" by Walecia Konrad for the New York Times "The Future of the Electric Car" The Week

Looking for previous year's Article of the Week assignments? Check out the Article of the Week Archive. *While I assigned these, many of the lessons were prepared by my colleagues in the Magnolia High School English Department, including Helen Chung, Amie Howell, Melissa Hunnicutt, Virginia Kim, Katrina Mundy, Esther Noh, Kalli Pappas, Sherri Rothwell, Lindsay Ruben, Margaret Tagler, Robin Turner, Sarah Valenzuela, Michelle Waxman, and Dana White.