Brief Description

Prior to embarking on this lesson the students will have researched, written reports and made PowerPoint presentations on individual topics about Venezuela, its history, heroes and general economy.  These presentations were made to the class as a whole and the students took notes on each presentation. They will therefore have a general idea of the importance of the major players involved in the ongoing political crisis in Venezuela, which is intimately tied to the oil production cutback. This lesson is designed to be “a step further” to bring the students in contact with the current “real world” issues.

Using Venezuelan and Latin American newspapers this lesson will offer the students the opportunity to look at the current political crisis in Venezuela from more than one point of view.  Students will read articles from Venezuelan newspapers to get a “local” perspective and they will then read articles from other Latin American newspapers to compare the information and the points of view.  Students will then be asked to form an opinion as to what is happening and why.  They will also then be asked to predict an outcome.  Gifted students will be asked to craft a possible resolution of the crisis.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

• 3T-P2. Use a variety of technology tools for data collection and analysis to support a decision
• 5T-P1. Develop a research strategy to find accurate, relevant, appropriate electronic information sources

• Standard 1: Students understand and interpret written and spoken communication on a variety of topics in the target language.
• Standard 3: Students present information and ideas in the target language on a variety of topics to listeners and readers.
• Standard 5: Students use the target language and authentic sources to reinforce and/or learn other content from the other subject areas.
• Standard 7: Students use the target language within and beyond the school setting.

Academic

Using Internet search engines the students will find Venezuelan and other Latin American newspaper articles about the political crisis in Venezuela and about its oil production problems. They will compare the articles for information, point of view and authorship.  They will appreciate a variety of attitudes towards the problem and develop an opinion as to what is going on and why.  Gifted students will then develop a solution of the crisis that might satisfy the participants and others that this problem affects.


Technological

Using search engines, students will find 5 or more Venezuelan and Latin American newspaper articles.  After reading the articles, students will compare the information.

Pre-Requisite Technology Skills

Students need to be able to get on to the Internet and to use various search engines to find Venezuelan and Latin American newspapers published on the web.

Materials

Internet access, an electronic source evaluation sheet, an article documentation sheet and a summary sheet.

Accommodations for Special Needs

The SEI students will need specific instructions on how to use a search engine to find the sites they need to accomplish the task.  If they are native Spanish-speakers, they will be at an advantage once they have located the newspapers of Venezuela and Latin America.

The ADD/ADHD students will need specific instructions on how to use a search engine to find the sites they need to accomplish the task.  If the sites provide a translated English version of the article, this will be advantageous to these students to get the information they need.  They may also need some specific teacher direction to make the comparisons of the information they find.

The Special Education students will also need specific instructions on how to use a search engine to find the sites they need to accomplish the task.  They will have a reduced yet specific list of pieces of information to look for.  They will be assisted if they cannot find English language versions of their articles.  The will also need specific teacher direction to make any comparisons of the information they find.

The Gifted students will be self-directed as they use the evaluation rubric to find credible sites.  They will not need to find English language versions of their articles and, in fact, will be required to use at least two Spanish language articles.  They will be asked to offer a solution to the crisis that would be acceptable to the various participants.

Procedures
 

1. The students will use major search engines, such as google.com to find newspapers in Spanish from Venezuela and from other countries.  The search words “newspapers” and “South America” will yield several sites that promise the desired information.  There are a lot of sites which will link the student to newspapers from South America, such as newsdirectory.com/news/press/sa/, newslink/org/nonuss.html,  www.allyoucanread.com/newspapers.asp?id=R7, just to name a few.  Students need to explore the sites to find the newspapers in Spanish.  Some of the bigger newspapers will have an English version of the article available. Special Ed. Students will need to refer to the English version to help them out.
2. The students will choose Venezuela and then two newspapers from a list of the available newspapers on that site for that country.  The teacher will need to advise the students to stick to the major city newspapers for better results.
3. The teacher should provide dictionaries to aid the students in their reading.  South American newspapers are written for a more advanced reading level than U.S. newspapers.
4. The student will then evaluate the articles he/she finds according to the Checklist for Evaluating Web Pages from Bowling Green State University (http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/infosrv/lue/webwizard/evaluationchecklist.html) that the teacher has copied for student use.  This process will be repeated until the student has at least two articles from Venezuelan newspapers and two to three articles, each from a different South American country, preferably from major city newspapers. This process will require at least three class periods in order to allow the students enough time to read the articles they find and evaluate them. The teacher should require at least one, if not two evaluation sheets per class period.
5. The teacher should provide an additional worksheet for each article read on which the students can record the author, title of the article, the date, the name of the newspaper and any supporting quotes from the article to support a statement of bias or a point of view.
6. In the summary class period the students will use the evaluation sheets and the article worksheets to write an analysis of the situation and to contrast the points of view found in the articles they read.  The Gifted Students will be asked to craft a solution to the problem that might satisfy all those affected by the crisis.

The assessment will take the form of a rubric in which the steps of the process, the evaluation and the summary analyses are delineated according to performance levels.  This rubric will have to be adjusted for the special needs students.