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CNN Student News: Daily News in 10 Minutes

Details

Main Website:
Activity Website:
Tech Product/Equipment:
Computer and projector, Mobile devices for students

Activity Description

 
CNN 10
Source: Story posted on March 31, 2023 (License: Protected by Copyright (c) [i.e. screenshot])
 
 
Provide listening, speaking, and writing practice on current events with CNN Student News, a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. This award-winning show and its companion Web site are available free of charge throughout the school year and transcripts for each show as well as daily discussion questions are provided for classroom use.

Preparation

  1. Visit CNN Student News and preview the day's 10-minute video and/or read the daily transcript.
  2. Preview the Daily Discussion questions to determine which questions you want to use or write your own. Once you select the questions, type them. You can share them with your students in a Google doc, Microsoft Word Doc, pdf, or print copy.
  3. Download and make available any maps or other print materials your students may need.
  4. To get information about each day's show, go to Today's news in 10 minutes. You can get a printable version of today's CNN 10 transcript by selecting the link on the page.

How-To

  1. Ask students to identify possible topics for the day's video (current events related to weather, politics, etc.). List these on the board.
  2. Tell students the topic of today's video and generate a discussion to activate background knowledge. Have students identify vocabulary associated with the topic and write these words on the board.
  3. Have students predict what kind of information will be included in the video and write these predictions on the board.
  4. Show the day's CNN Student News video and encourage the students to take notes.
  5. Review the students' predictions and have them identify which predictions were correct.
  6. Display the daily discussion questions and have students discuss them in small groups.
  7. Lead a whole-class discussion about the questions.

Teacher Tips

  • Make students aware of the pre-listening strategies used (activating background knowledge, predicting) and encourage them to use these strategies when listening outside of the classroom.
  • Also, be sure to choose news stories of interest to most of your students. You can look in the Archive section if the current day's video is not useful.

More Ways

  • You may wish to have students write their responses to the discussion questions after their small group discussions.
  • Look in the archive for older videos that you can use for other writing or discussion topics.

Program Areas

  • ABE: Adult Basic Education
  • ESL: English as a Second Language
  • ASE: High School Diploma

Levels

  • Low
  • Intermediate
  • High
  • All Levels

Lesson Plan

Warm-up
Engagement

Ask students what has been happening in the news lately. Have them turn to their neighbor and discuss events/stories that are currently happening. 

 

Introduction

As a whole group discuss stories mentioned. Write them on the board. CNN-10 video discusses current news stories. 

How many of the stories mentioned by the class are included in the video? 

Presentation
Engagement

The class will first watch the ten minute video. Students should take notes on the various stories.

After the video, students turn to a neighbor and  discuss the stories presented in the video. Which ones were the most interesting? Most important? What did you learn that you didn't know already? What story made you want to learn more about it?

Gather as a class and discuss what each student pair talked about in their group.

Practice
Engagement Enhancement

After the class discussion, each student and his/her partner will be given a set of questions to answer together. They can watch the video again together. The questions can be created by the teacher or downloaded from CNN10 

Practice
Engagement Enhancement

As pairs, students decide on one of the topics that interested them most. They research the topic online. 

Use the graphic organizer: Web Graphic Organizer to assist their search.

Evaluation
Enhancement

For Practice 1: Each pair of students share answers they wrote to the questions with a second pair of students. Evalute the answers. Discuss any differences. Turn in the answers. 

For Practice 2: At the next class period, students present what they learned to the class.

Application
Enhancement Extension

Select one of the topics for the class to research. Introduce sites where they can fact-check the topic including FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and Snopes. Have students work in pairs and research the topic.

Use the EdTech Resource:Turn Students into Fact-Finding Web Detectives from Common Sense Education for more ideas.

Use the graphic organizer: Web Graphic Organizer to assist their search.

Students can present their findings using Flipgrid, Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, or some other presentation method.

Documents

Subjects

  • Writing
    • Basic Sentences
    • Paragraph Skills

Standards

  • Writing
    • CCR Anchor 2 - Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
  • Speaking and Listening
    • CCR Anchor 2 - Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
    • CCR Anchor 3 - Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
    • CCR Anchor 4 - Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Tags

Listening, Speaking, Writing, discussion, discussion questions, listening strategies, media, media literacy, news, note taking, note-taking, predict, predicting, pre-listening, strategies, taking notes, video, vocabulary, CNN, CNN student news, critical thinking, current events

Conditions

CNN is copyrighted but allows you to link to the video and print the questions, transcripts. "You may download copyrighted material for your personal use only... In the event of any permitted copying, redistribution or publication of copyrighted material, no changes in or deletion of author attribution, trademark legend or copyright notice shall be made. You acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights by downloading copyrighted material."
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OTAN activities are funded by contract CN220124 from the Adult Education Office, in the Career & College Transition Division, California Department of Education, with funds provided through Federal P.L., 105-220, Section 223. However, OTAN content does not necessarily reflect the position of that department or the U.S. Department of Education.