I use the articles, graphs and charts in USA TODAY to develop comprehension and higher-order thinking questions. I'll put articles and charts on the overhead, and then ask students reading comprehension questions about the articles. I want my students to be able to recognize the main idea of a story, to learn to infer information and then draw conclusions, and have the ability to distinguish fact from opinion in an article.
The questions I ask are of the variety that would appear on the North Carolina End of Grade tests. These tests are given to all students at the end of each school year to evaluate whether students are meeting our state's educational standards. To meet objectives, I use a copy of a previous End of Grade test to make up similar questions. I have students engage in free-writing activities where they find the main idea, draw conclusions, etc., from an article. This is an effective technique to improve student writing skills in preparation for North Carolina's 7th grade writing test. The 7th grade writing test is important because it's a benchmark test that counts toward the ABC goals that the state has implemented for North Carolina's educational assessment and standards.
