Workshop 2: Making Writing Meaningful

Damond Moodie's Lesson

Damond Moodie prepares his class to write letters to the editor.

Damond Moodie encourages his seventh-grade students to use multiple media avenues—television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet—to access current events, develop opinions about them, and then express and support those opinions in writing.

In Damond's current events lesson, students bring in written summaries of news stories they've found and share them with the class. The class selects three of the stories to research further, and students ultimately write letters to the editor on topics that originated from these news stories.

Current Events Lesson Plan (pdf)