Click your grade-level and subject for NIE resources designed to help you meet curriculum objectives.

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Teaching civics?

Check out these teacher-created, ready-to-use resources.

Thank-you to civics teacher Michael Siedlecki for creating these interactive, newspaper-based lesson plans.

3 Levels/3 Branches of Government (password required)
Created by Michael Siedlecki
Sols: CE 1a, 1b, 6a, 7a, 8 a-c
Lesson Plans
Class notes for students
Rubric: 3 Levels/3 Branches (collage)
Interactive slides
SMARTnotebook
Webquest

Bonus Day 3 Review (password required)
Lesson Plans
Class notes for students
Interactive slides
SMARTnotebook
Webquest

Character Traits of Good Citizens (password required)
Created by Michael Siedlecki
Sols: CE 4 a-e & 1a
Lesson plans
Class notes for students
Good Citizen Collage Activity
Interactive slides
       SMARTnotebook
       PowerPoint

Influencing Public Policy (password required)
Created by Michael Siedlecki
Sols: CE 9a, 9b, 3b
Lesson plans
Class notes for students
Worksheet: Ways Interest Groups Influence Public Agenda
Rubric: Influencing Policy (letter-writing)
Rubric: Ways Media Sets Public Agenda (collage)
Good Citizen Collage Activity
Interactive slides
       SMARTnotebook
       PowerPoint

Teacher-endorsed lessons & activities
Citizenship and the First Amendment
Political Process and Media
Branches and Structure of Government
Election Scrapbook Project
Economics
Supplemental Activities



  Introducing Students to Newspapers- Six introductory activities.
Your students will get much more out of newspaper lessons in the classroom and newspaper reading in general when you take time to teach ABOUT the newspaper BEFORE you begin teaching WITH the newspaper.

Search Historical Newspaper Pages
The microfilm of the Free Lance-Star newspaper has been scanned and is searchable through the Google News Archive. This includes The Free Lance (1885-1926) and The Daily Star (1893-1926), the two newspapers that merged in 1926 to become The Free Lance-Star.

To limit your search by dates, use the advanced search function. Type free lance star in the “Source Return results that come from” field.

Understanding Political Cartoons
• Cartoons for the Classroom A new lesson every week
• Cartoon Evaluation Worksheet
• Explore Constitutional Issues through Political Cartoons!
• Toon Talk Read Clay Jones’ blog about his-and other's-cartoons.
• Free Lance-Star Weekly Caption Contest – Contest cartoons run Wednesdays on Page 2 of The Free Lance-Star, or use the online entry form. Winner’s cartoon runs on Page 2 the following Tuesday.
Web Links:

The Virginia Public Access Project
Follow where candidates get their money and how they spend it with this searchable database.

University of Virginia Center for Politics Youth Leadership Initiative
Register for FREE access to rigorous, teacher-developed civics and government lesson plans correlated to SOLs. Suggested NIE lessons: Detecting Bias in Media, Political Cartoon Analysis, Campaign Advertising

Compare Today’s Front Pages
The Newseum displays daily newspaper front pages from 592 newspapers from the U.S. and 56 other countries.

Links to Online Newspapers around the world

Bill of Rights in the Daily Headlines
Read breaking news related to the Bill of Rights, gathered daily from major news sources across the country and chosen for ease of use in the classroom.

Lesson Plans for Teaching the First Amemdment:
These lessons address constitutional principles and contemporary issues involving the First Amendment. They will draw young people into an exploration of how their freedoms began and how they operate in today's world.

Factcheck.org
Factcheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It's companion Web site Fact CheckED www.factchecked.org serves teachers and students.

FREE NIE Curriculum Guides:

Citizens Together: You and Your Newspaper:Explore freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, with emphasis on rights to know, to express one’s opinion, to assemble, to be secure and to the legal system.

Your Newspaper, Your Town Hall:Provides lessons related to the newspaper’s coverage of town/city government and the local community.

Freedom: It Looks Good On You: First amendment teaching and curriculum guide

Newspapers Inspire and Enlighten
A great resource for introducing students to newspapers. Topics include news gathering, newspaper sections, types of writing, advertising, production, history, careers and terms.

Keep It Real:
Activities help students develop and extend their ability to comprehend informational text structures and organization. Includes special section of activity pages for elementary grades.
 
Printable NIE Lessons and Activity Sheets:

Get Ready To Get Involved
Click Here to download the PDF
Learn and Serve:
Supplemental newspaper-based activities to use with Service–Learning Programs.

Speaking of a Free Press: 200 years of notable quotations about press freedoms

 

Constitution Scavenger Hunt

 

NEW! Engage, inform, and educate your students with TweenTribune, an online news site that’s updated every day with kid-friendly stories from AP and The Free Lance-Star. Students can comment on stories; teacher-friendly tools make it easy for you to review comments before you submit them.
Tweentribune.com
Intro to TweenTribune