"A Day in the Life, Internationally"
Each Week in Rap includes international news stories. This lesson will ask students to choose a country mentioned, draw out key details from the news article, and use these details to think about how their lives would be different if they lived in that country.
Objectives
Students will:
-Research key terms for a country different from the one they live in
-Infer what daily life might be like from a news article
-Articulate what their daily life might be like if they were a student in that country
-Write a summary of what their life would be like if they lived there
-Compare and contrast their life to life in another country.
Materials
-The Week in Rap
-Computer lab and/or internet access
Time
1 or 2 class periods, depending on how much research you'd like students to do
Sequence
1. Watch the current Week in Rap video, and ask students to look out for international stories.
2. Choose one of the international stories and read the linked news article. Ask students to discuss as a class how they think their life would be different if they lived there, citing details from the news story.
3. Give students 15 minutes to look at the Week in Rap archives and find a different recent video where an international story is mentioned. Ask them to pick a country of interest.
4. Using the article linked to from an infobox in The Week in Rap, ask students to write down some key details that give clues about what life is like in that country. Ask them to use the news website where they found the article to search for a few more articles about that country. Students should find a few more key details. You can use the Flocabulary research and note taking videos to help students review skills for this step.
5. Using the details researched, students should write several paragraphs describing what their life would be like if they lived in that country. They should explain what they would do each day, and describe how it would be similar or different to their current life. Note: If any of your students are from a country mentioned, you should encourage them to contribute firsthand information.
Extension / Wrap Up
Students can continue following news stories from that country, and make any updates to their writing.
If a student's country is mentioned in a future Week in Rap, they can be the "local expert" and fill the class in on background information they learned from this project.