Current Event Guidelines

Current Event Guidelines
Mr. Johnson
6th, 7th, and 8th Grade Social Studies

The purpose of these guidelines is to ensure student understanding of the basic concepts of the news in order to provide a meaningful classroom discussion. Students are responsible for one current event per trimester. At the end of the year each student should have a total of three current events: one local, one national, and one international. Sixth graders will always present their current events in class on Tuesday, Seventh graders on Wednesday, and Eighth graders on Thursday.

Stories can be obtained from printed media (newspapers, magazines) or the internet*. Current event summaries should include the following information and should be written in paragraph format:

ÿ What happened?
ÿ Who was involved?
ÿ Where did the event occur?
ÿ When did it happen?
ÿ What is the importance of the event?
ÿ What is your personal reaction?
ÿ What was the source of your information? **(No, the National Inquirer or any similar magazine is not a good source)

The following topics are acceptable:

¸ Politics (local, national, or international)
¸ History
¸ Economics
¸ Social concerns (crime, poverty, homelessness, etc)


I do not want sports or entertainment stories.

Remember, I want to see your interpretation of the story: simply rewriting the article is not acceptable.

* If your story is obtained from the internet, it needs to be from a credible and reliable news website like cnn.com, reuters.com, latimes.com.

** Please bring in a hard copy of your story.