Analyze Headlines for the Week in Rap
Use this lesson in conjunction with the Week in Rap to focus on why the specific headlines were selected for the song and to discover the criteria used. Then have students pick headlines based on criteria they develop themselves.
Objectives
- Discuss the stories covered in the Week in Rap;
- Practice applying the criteria used to evaluate each story;
- Devise their own criteria to employ in deciding on stories to highlight for the week.
Common Core State Standards
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.8
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.8
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.8
Products Created
- A list of criteria that could be used to select headlines for the Week in Rap
Time
- 1-2 class periods
Sequence
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If possible, in the week/several days leading up to this lesson, follow current events with your class and keep a list of the items that come up in the news.
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Show the most recent Week In Rap video, but before doing so, have students predict the stories they think will be covered in the song.
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After viewing the video, either have a discussion or do a short writing exercise around their response to the events included (and those excluded) in the song. Were they surprised by anything? Disappointed? Satisfied?
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Tell students that the team at Flocabulary uses certain criteria that have been developed over time to choose the headlines to cover. Each week, the stories meet the following criteria:
- There are usually seven headlines;
- It’s important to have a mix of different types of stories--usually one of each of the following: International, National, Science/Tech, Youth-Related, Sports (if relevant), and "Feel good." There is often more than one in one of the categories, but there should be at least one in each;
- The target audience is middle and high school students all over the country and even the world, so we don’t cover anything extremely controversial or too horribly traumatic;
- We focus on stories that help people learn about the world. For example, in July 2014, there were two plane crashes: The MH17 plane that was shot down over Ukraine, allegedly by pro-Russia rebels, and the bad weather-related Taiwan TransAsia Airways plane crash. While both crashes are tragedies, flight MH17 was part of the larger story of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the Taiwan crash was simply bad weather and an emergency landing. We covered MH17, not the Taiwan crash;
- Unless it’s the milestone anniversary (25, 50 or 100 years) of a BIG event, anniversaries aren’t big enough news to cover;
- We don’t cover news until it’s actually news. For example, if a headline is about Obama’s plans to propose some law, we wait until he actually proposes it, or until it actually gets voted on;
- Because of the timeline we work with to publish the WIR each week, the news we cover typically occurs between Friday and the following Wednesday at 1 PM. We sort of miss Wednesday night and Thursday because that's when we are making the song. If something crazy happens on Thursday, then we will absolutely cover it, but at that point it won't appear in the WIR video until the NEXT Friday, making it effectively news that is eight days "old." This isn't ideal, but it happens, like when Nelson Mandela died on a Thursday;
- There should be an awareness of the tone of the stories as well. We try to strike a balance between the heavy/sad and the light and/or inspiring.
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Discuss these criteria as a class. Watch some past Week in Rap videos and check to see if the stories meet the criteria. Encourage healthy debate when appropriate about the choices of content.
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Give students the opportunity to come up with their own criteria for choosing stories for the week. Would it be the same as Flocabulary's? Would there be some overlap and some differences? They should come up with a set of criteria and reasoning behind it. How are their criteria helping them reach their intended audience? How can they go deep with impact but also reach a wide enough variety of people?
Wrap Up/Extensions
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Have students share their criteria with the class and open their decisions up to feedback.
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Have students apply their criteria to a week’s worth of news and come up with their collection of headlines that they would submit for a WIR.
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Have students write a WIR based on headlines they choose.