Dust Bowl Newspaper | Of Mice and Men Newspaper Activity

Activity Overview

As students read the novel, it can be helpful to connect the real events of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl with the story. A helpful way to do this is for students to create a newspaper! Using one of the newspaper templates, students can create the front page of a newspaper that the characters might have read during their time in the story. Students will make inferences based on the text and may also complete additional research to flesh out their project.

As an extended or classroom activity, have students create the whole newspaper, including various interior articles that also follow sub plots or real life events. Students can print their newspaper pages out, and they can be bound together as a class!

For additional templates to include in this assignment, check out our Newspaper Poster and Newspaper Worksheet templates!

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Template and Class Instructions

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Due Date:

Objective: Create the front page of a newspaper set during or just after the events of the story. Feel free to use historical context for your article!

Student Instructions:

Click "Start Assignment."
Create a title for your newspaper and a catchy headline for the main story.
Use appropriate scenes, characters and items to create "photographs" for your article.
Include captions for "photographs".
Write the accompanying text for the main story, and any other articles on the front page.

You may need to delete the placeholder lines and add new Textables.

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Lesson Plan Reference

Grade Level 9-12

Difficulty Level 4 (Difficult / Complex)

Type of Assignment Individual

Type of Activity: Newspaper Posters

Common Core Standards

[ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/1] Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text
[ELA-Literacy/RL/9-10/3] Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme
[ELA-Literacy/W/9-10/6] Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically

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Rubric

(You can also create your own on Quick Rubric.)

Newspaper Front Page

Students will re-tell key events from the story using a Newspaper front page as a template. They will add a catchy headline, create images and write descriptions for each to imitate the look of the front page of a newspaper highlighting the key events of the story.

	Proficient 7 Points	Emerging 4 Points	Beginning 1 Points
Headline and Descriptions	Students include a catchy headline for the front page as well as detailed descriptions for each event illustrated that explain what happened in a minimum of 3-5 sentences.	The headline and/or the descriptions for the events can be understood but it is somewhat unclear or too brief.	The front page is missing either the headline or descriptions of each of the events depicted.
Illustrations	The illustrations represent the events using appropriate scenes, characters and items. It is clear the student took time and care in creating the illustrations.	The illustrations partially relate to the events but they are difficult to understand or appear rushed.	The illustrations do not clearly relate to the key events of the story.
Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation	Final product is free of spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors.	Final product contains up to three errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar that do not alter the meaning of the text.	Final product contains more than three errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar.