Middle East Current Events Portfolio

You will complete a current events project on the Middle East using primary sources (ie: magazines and newspapers). Websites may not be used.

You are required to complete THREE SEPARATE current events. Each current even MUST relate to a different country. Therefore, you can not have two current events dealing with Iraq. Instead, an example of a good current event portfolio will include one current even from Iraq, one from Iran, and one from Saudi Arabia. Obviously, a combination of any three countries is fine.

Portfolio Requirements:

The Portfolio will be divided up into a total of three sections. You will include the actual article (it can be a copy) in your portfolio. Each section is for one specific country. Each section will then be divided into sub 5 sections. They are as follows:

  1. Bibliographic Information
  2. Title of article
  3. Author
  4. Date
  5. Source (The New York Times is recommended. Other good sources are Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, The Star Ledger, and the Record)
  1. Photographs and Graphics
  2. Observations: What do you see? Describe the photo in your own words. This exercise helps you to focus on details.
  3. Caption: Summarize the caption. What did you learn from the caption?
  1. Observation of the Text
  2. Who? Who are the main characters in the article?
  3. What? What is the article about?
  4. When? When did the events take place?
  5. Where? Where did the events take place?
  6. Why? Why are the events, people, places and things important?
  7. How? How did the events take place? How did it happen? How were the people affected?
  1. Reading Comprehension
  2. What is the main idea? What one sentence captures the thesis (main argument) of the article?
  3. List several supporting details.
  4. What is your favorite line or quote from the article? Why?
  5. Identify THREE vocabulary words from the article along with their definitions.
  1. Reaction
  2. What did you learn?
  3. How did it make you feel?
  4. What is the author’s opinion? What is your opinion of the article or the events described, or both?

Grading:

This will count as a project grade.

Failure to use THREE current events from THREE different countries will result in a deduction of 1 full letter grade.

Failure to complete all parts of the subsections will result in a severe deduction in your grade.

Spelling an grammatical errors will result in a severe deduction in your grade.

ABSOLUTELY NO LATE PORTFOLIOS WILL BE ACCEPTED!!!

DUE: ______