Exploring Newspapers through Cooperative Learning

Abstract

This textbook aims to provide middle school students with an opportunity to improve their English language skills through newspaper articles and cooperative tasks. By using this textbook, students will be able to explore the world around them and expand their own experiences as well as improve their language abilities by reading newspaper articles. Most textbooks using newspaper articles seem to focus on acquiring lexical knowledge and using linguistic resources from the texts, but this textbook focuses on improving the students’critical thinking skills through cooperative learning, which includes interactive activities such as jigsaw reading, think-pair-share discussion, and cooperative writing. This textbook is designed for middle school students in an after-school English classroom. The target learners might be interested in exploring real world matters beyond the school textbooks and intensive language programs that only focus on the four language skills. The target students’ language proficiency level is approximately level 4 according to the WIDA (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment) 2012 Amplified English Language Development Standards. Furthermore, this book might be ideal for teachers who want to take an alternative approach to teaching English that focuses on helping the learners to develop critical thinking skills through authentic reading texts and interactive activities.