The Guide to Teaching
 |
Using Newspapers in the Classroom
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 1997 11:44:51 +0800
From: Denis Thornton <thornton@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
I have used the Christian Science Monitor for years in the two classes that
I teach: American Government and Politics and Introduction to Non-Western
Politics. I make extensive use of current events in the two classes and use the
Monitor as the major source of stories. In the Non-Western class I go much
further. We spend a lot of time on what news coverage on the Third World
is presented to the American people and I bring into class the relevant
portions of one of the major networks (usually the students choose NBC).
We keep track of what subjects are covered, how they are presented and how
the USA is portrayed. They have two short assignments during the semester
in which they compare what they have seen on TV with the Monitor, first as
to how the Third World is portrayed and secondly how the US is portrayed.
I have found that these assignments are hard for students to do well but
that they quickly understand what kind of news the networks present (when
they present any at all, it gets depressing sometimes!) and how distorted
the presentation of the news is when you have no background in the subject
and get no help from a 2 minute story. They also reallize that the Monitor
is significantly different and that therefore all media are not the same.
Secondary benefits include the need for them to set up categories in which
to "file" the NBC stories they see, the need to decide what a Third World
country actually IS so I know what countries to record, and they have to
grapple with the whole idea of bias and how you measure it. I also try to
provide some background to the stories being presented so that the students
have some context in which to place what they have seen and read. The
downside is that this part of the course has grown into much more than I
wished since we start out every class period with the news. I think this
spring I shall try doing it once a week and directly comparing a TV story
to coverage on the same topic in the Monitor.
I hope that this has been of some help to you. Feel free to contact me if
I may be of any further use to you in this matter.
Denis Thornton
{ Top of Page }
Copyright for the messages in this section belongs to their author.
Teaching Politics is published by William J. Ball (ball@tcnj.edu)
