PitchIt! Student essay contest
Student voices are catalysts for positive change in schools and communities. You can empower them to be well-informed and
This guide serves as a companion for adult learners and community members viewing the PBS documentary Storm Lake, a film about the struggles of sustaining local journalism and shows what these newsrooms mean to communities and American democracy overall. The guide has three main components: pre-viewing, during viewing and post-viewing activities.
The pre-viewing activities use one or more essential questions to focus on viewers’ engagement with news and their opinions about its relationship to their community and to American democracy. The essential questions are:
The during viewing portion includes discussion questions that can be completed whole or in-part, individually, or in small groups. These questions include:
The post-viewing activities return to the essential questions raised prior to viewing and seek to extend engagement with local journalism. These options include keeping a news log for a week and evaluating a source (log included in the guide), interviewing family or friends about their news habits, engaging directly with local news organizations on social media or writing a letter or email to an editor with a suggestion for a story.
Student voices are catalysts for positive change in schools and communities. You can empower them to be well-informed and
This week, we talk to Miguel Otárola about how he decides which story ideas to pursue.
This week, we talk to Washington Post reporter María Luisa Paúl about her recent story on 7-year-old Tariq, whose
The News Literacy Project and TIME for Kids teamed up to create “News Matters,” a three-week unit plan intended
In this lesson, students use four key criteria to explore how journalists determine which events to cover.