Grades 6–8
60 minutes
Informational, Media
VideosSoledad O’Brien is an award-winning documentarian, journalist, speaker, author, and philanthropist, and founder of Soledad O’Brien Productions, a media production company dedicated to telling empowering and authentic stories on a range of social issues. She anchors and produces Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, a political magazine program syndicated in 95% of the country for Hearst and is a correspondent for HBO Real Sports.
You will learn how to turn a lot of research into a succinct piece of writing.
STEP 1
Watch the video. Then, answer this question in your writing journal: “If you could go ‘in the field’ like Soledad O’Brien, what would you hope to do? Would you love to travel and report on what you see? Who would you hope to interview? Write about your dream experience in your writing journal.”
STEP 2
Research an upcoming event that’s happening in your community or identify a current issue that’s important to the people in your community. In your writing journal, write about what you already know about this event or issue. (Hint: Even if you’re learning something new, you know the name of the event or the name of the issue!)
STEP 3
Next, you will think of open-ended questions about this issue or event to research. Open-ended questions are broad and allow the response to include more details. By asking open-ended...
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