Finding the Hook: Using Newspapers to Connect to High School Texts


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Ruth Shagoury

"Look at this article in The Arts section!" Natalie exclaimed. "It's called, 'Hot Music Rock Star as New Muse.' This will be a perfect lead-in for the next stage of The Odyssey."

"That will be a great hook for my students, too," Monica, an English teacher at the same high school agreed. "Last night, my cell phone was full of their text messages about the characters in the book. They are so confused! Let me see it when you're done."

Natalie and Monica are two of the teachers in our weekly gathering of high school teachers across many disciplines who are all choosing to explore reading comprehension with their adolescent students. Yes, this committed group of 16 teachers still meets every week, continuing to deepen our work. Besides language arts teachers, we also have a healthy mix of the sciences (organic chemistry, biology, physics, general science) as well as math, global studies, and music.

We remain committed to helping adolescents read and understand the books they encounter in their classrooms--and to go beyond using literacy to read and understand their worlds in and out of school.

One of our struggles has been to make explicit connections from the classroom curriculum themes and topics to the contemporary world and what interests our students. I decided to organize a workshop for the teachers to do some curriculum planning together, helping each other search for those links and make real connections for our students.

The workshop was quite straightforward: I brought in copies of both The New York Times and our local paper The Oregonian. The teachers each brought a copy of the text(s) or topics they were currently teaching. In pairs, teachers shared their topics and helped each other brainstorm and look through the papers to find links that might serve as a contemporary "hook" for their students.

Biology teacher Eric was the first to strike gold. "We're studying the human body, and the next unit will be on skin," he explained to his partner. "There are so many ads about keeping skin soft--and plugs for Botox injections for wrinkle-free skin. This could be a great hook for my students. We can look at what really keeps skin healthy--about rays from the sun--maybe even make our own lotions . . ." His partner Anna started finding similar ads in her newspaper and they brainstormed curriculum ideas as they marked pages and tore out sections.

Nori 's class is reading Warriors Don't Cry. She found articles about a local white pride group she will cut out and share with her students. "I want them to see this is important to study. It's still happening--and right here in Portland!"

Rhonda and Susan, both math teachers, were delighted to find graphs and charts on the business pages. "These oil heating cost charts will be great," they told the group in our debrief. "We can teach them how to read these graphs and research the heating bills from their families." Another math teacher in the group added, "I'm thinking you could go further, too helping students understand what larger numbers mean. You could look at the cost for the city, then the county, then the state if oil costs are up 22%. . ."

The brainstorming continued--and hopefully will spark brand-new curriculum that will engage our adolescent students. I've already gotten emails from some teachers sharing their experiments. I especially love the "probability" curriculum that grew from the state lottery article. Apparently, Sonia's class discovered that the probability of winning the state lottery is one in 13 million. What would give you a better chance of becoming a millionaire? her class wondered. Problem solved: given the number of West Coast Rap groups and the number of millionaires within that group, a high school student in Oregon has a 1 in 3 million chance of becoming a member of successful rap band! Way better odds than buying lottery tickets! I'm reading the newspaper through a new lens these days, looking for hooks to the world of the secondary classroom. (and thinking about starting my own West Coast rap group!)