Bakersfield City School District The Advisory Bulletin To: Junior High/Middle School Principals and Language Date: November 3, 2016 No. 17234 Arts Teachers Subject: Young Writers of Kern Essay Contest: How Does a Person Overcome Adversity? Prepared By: Michael D. Stone, Coordinator, Visual and Performing Arts Department Approved By: Dr. Tim Fulenwider, Director, Instructional Support Services Division Page 1 of 14
Essay Competition
Essay Topic: Should social media be used as a valid news source for students?
What: Students attending District Junior High/Middle Schools in Bakersfield City School District and throughout the County are invited to participate in an Essay Contest sponsored by the Writers of Kern. This project will be aligned with Common Core State Standards in the area of argumentative writing. The writing prompt will be on the following topic: “Should social media be used as a valid news source for students?” Lesson plans for this project will be provided for the purpose of building background knowledge and student discourse that will align to the writing prompt. Initial screening of essays will be conducted by teachers from participating schools. Each school selects up to 10 entries. Submissions will be judged using the SMARTER Balanced Writing Rubric.
Who: Students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 at the District’s Junior High/Middle Schools and other similarly-configured schools outside of the District are eligible to participate.
When: The lesson plan will be introduced and taught during the week of January 30-February 3, 2017, with submission of up to 10 essays from each school at the discretion of the principal, submitted to the Visual and Performing Arts Department Office by Friday, February 24, 2017, at 4:30 p.m.
Guidelines: Essays are to be typed in Arial font, size 12, double-spaced, and no more than 1,200 words in length.
Screening Selection Process: Initial screening will be conducted by teachers from the respective participating schools. Each participating school principal may select up to 10.
Rating Criteria: Submissions will be judged using the SMARTER Balanced Writing Rubric.
Deadlines: Submissions from school principals are to be delivered to the Visual and Performing Arts Department Office by Friday, February 24, 2017, at 4:30 p.m. These entries will be delivered to the official judges. Winners will be selected and announced by the last week of April, 2017.
Awards: Cash prizes will be given to the top students from throughout the County.
Essay Topic: Should social media be
used as a valid news source for students? Essay Competition
REGISTRATION FORM (Duplicate as Necessary) School Name: ______
STUDENT’S NAME GRADE
SCHOOL NAME______
TEACHER’S NAME______
Important: Make a copy of this box and attach to the entry (e.g., essay, short story, or poetry)
STUDENT’S NAME GRADE
SCHOOL NAME______
TEACHER’S NAME______
Important: Make a copy of this box and attach to the entry (e.g., essay, short story, or poetry)
STUDENT’S NAME GRADE
SCHOOL NAME______
TEACHER’S NAME______
Important: Make a copy of this box and attach to the entry (e.g., essay, short story, or poetry)
Release of Directory Information for Purposes of Publicity
As an outcome of participating in the above-mentioned writing and art competition, information about a participating student may be publicly disclosed (e.g., student's name, school award received, and involvement in this contest). These disclosures are permissible under "directory information" law and policy unless the parent or legal guardian ("Parent") has notified the school in writing that such information may not be disclosed. I declare that no Parent of a student entered in this contest has given a notice of non-participation in the release of directory information policy (i.e., placed a check in the "Release of Directory Information" box of the Parent Acknowledgement page of the Guide for Parents and Students).
______PRINCIPAL’S SIGNATURE
Return: (1) Registration Form and (2) Labeled Entries to the Visual and Performing Arts Department Office no later than Friday, February 24, 2017. Questions, please call the Visual and Performing Arts Department Office at 631-4774.
DUPLICATE FORM AS NECESSARY Should social media be used as a valid news source for students?
Essay Competition Lesson Plans (Placeholder)
Essay Topic: “Should social media be used as a valid news source for students?”
Dear Teacher,
Thank you for your consideration and work to include your students in the Writers of Kern 2016/2017 Essay Contest. Contained within this document, you will find an array of resources to help you prepare your students for participation and suggestions for instruction. The writing prompt is “Should social media be used as a valid news sources for students?”
In order to prepare your students to fully address this prompt and provide a well-reasoned point of view, you will need to build background by reading materials, holding class discussions and collaborative conversations, and allowing your students time to research the topic on their own. Contained in this packet you will find:
Suggested Instructional Approach: ● Building Background ● Identifying the Problem ● Self-Directed Student Research Teaching Materials: ● Student Graphic Organizer ● Suggested Sources ● 6-8 SBAC Argumentative Rubric
Suggested Instructional Approach
Build Background Students must fully understand the concept of research, validity and social media. Use a KWL chart and class discussion to determine what students already know.
Next, we recommend you create instruction suited to your style (class inquiry, direct instruction, or as a student-led activity) based on focusing on the following questions and purposes:
Guiding Question Purpose Where to find information
What is social media? Students must have an http://www.digitaltrends.com/ understanding of what social features/the-history-of-social- media is and how it evolved networking/ over time.
What is the impact of social Students must learn how news https://www.mushroomnetwo media on the news? spread on social media and rks.com/infographics/social- how that may alter the public media-news-outlets-vs.- perception on events. traditional-news-infographic
http://www.journalism.org/20 16/05/26/news-use-across- social-media-platforms-2016/
How do you determine the Students must learn how to http://mason.gmu.edu/~monte credibility of a news source? determine the validity of a cin/web-eval-sites.htm news source. https://uknowit.uwgb.edu/pag e.php?id=30276
Identify the Problem
During this phase of the lesson, the students should gain information and begin to form an argument to determine if social media is a relevant, valid news source. Information students acquire during this phase can be organized by using a graphic organizer. Teacher can use the articles and sources provided to help build an understanding and to further student knowledge of creditability, the impact of social media and the shifts in the public consumption of the news.
Self-Directed Student Research
Students should have discussions with groups, create research questions for themselves to learn more information, and perform research to form their argument. When the class has a concept of a solid understanding of social media and the news, they should begin to perform research independently to solidify their position, and finally prepare to write their essay.
Identifying the Problem Graphic Organizer
Current Event Summary How does impact my position?
How does social media impact society?
What are the benefits to accessing the news through social media?
What are the disadvantages to accessing your news through social media?
How has social media changed how we consume the news?
Graphic Organizer for Student Research
Research Question Information Found How this Citation strengthens my argument
The following resources are intended to build understanding of the societal impact of social media. They are to be used as an in-class background building resource
40 percent of millennials pay for print, online news By Tali Arbel, Associated Press 10.13.15
NEW YORK — In a world flush with free information, some young people are still willing to shell out for news they read. A recent poll shows that 40 percent of U.S. adults ages 18-34 pay for at least some of the news they read, whether it's a print newspaper, a digital news app or an email newsletter. Another 13 percent don't pay themselves but rely on someone else's subscription, according to the survey by Media Insight Project, a collaboration of the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Older millennials are more likely than younger ones to personally pay for news. "Forty percent is a strong number but that means the majority are not willing to pay," said Keith Herndon, a visiting professor of journalism at the University of Georgia and former journalist. "We have to think of ways of making the content compelling enough that someone would be willing to pay for it." The proliferation of free news online and new ways for advertisers to reach consumers has besieged publishers of newspapers and magazines. Newspapers' print ad revenue, their primary source of cash, has dropped 63 percent, to $16.4 billion, in 2014 from 2003, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. Daily paid newspaper circulation reached a peak in 1984, at 63.3 million, according to an industry group, the Newspaper Association of America. That represented a quarter of the country's population. Daily paid circulation has now shrunk to 40.4 million, even as the U.S. population has grown by about a third. There have been attempts to capitalize on the shift online. Digital ad revenues from newspaper websites have more than doubled as print ad revenue collapsed, but still come to only $3.5 billion — just a fraction of print ad revenue last year. And some major news organizations in recent years began charging for access to their websites and selling digital-only subscriptions, rather than posting content for free online. For example, The New York Times and The Washington Post both let non-subscribers click only on a certain number of articles per month before blocking content. In 2012, the Times' circulation revenue passed its ad revenue for the first time because of its digital initiatives. But newspapers overall still get the majority of their revenue from advertising, according to data from consultant and accounting firm PwC. And other popular news sites, particularly newer online-only outlets like Huffington Post and BuzzFeed, remain free to all. A quarter of those polled paid for some type of digital news, while 29 percent paid for a print paper or magazine. Older millennials are more likely than younger millennials to pay for print news products. That effect doesn't show up with digital news — millennials in their 30s are as likely as those in their late teens and early 20s to pay for online news. More young people spend on entertainment. Nearly 8 in 10 pay for at least one service. When you break it down, 55 percent pay for downloading or streaming movies or TV — services like Netflix and Apple's iTunes. Four in 10 pay for cable, which contains channels that show news. Nearly half pay for music, and 46 percent pay for video games or gaming apps. "Millennials have shown they are willing to engage in content that interests them," Herndon said, pointing to the popularity of podcasts. But "a lot of traditional news organizations haven't been able to make a connection with younger audiences," who spend more time on their phones and often find links to individual, free bits of news through Facebook and other social media. Like Molly Vazquez, 26, a librarian from Overland Park, Kansas, who pays $10 a month for music service Spotify but draws the line at paying for news. "News is pretty readily come by for free. I don't think I should have to pay for it," said Vazquez, who gets her fill from clicking links while combing through Facebook on her phone and from BuzzFeed's app and website. She has also been using Apple's recently launched news app, which contains stories from numerous outlets, on her iPhone. Adam Saltz, a 27-year-old grad student in Cambridge, Massachussetts, also uses social media to find news. He clicks on links from Twitter but also follows blogs and reads The New York Times and The Washington Post online. He has access to The New York Times through a parent's subscription. Like half the people of his generation who say they value keeping up with news, he doesn't pay for it. But he said that he's not necessarily unwilling to spend. "If I didn't have a family member who had (a subscription) who was willing to share, I would probably be paying for mine," he said. Chris Lederer, a principal at PwC, said digital subscription trends in the past two years have been "absolutely encouraging" for publishers. But he expects growth there to decline and sees the next evolution coming in the form of "digital newsstands," perhaps created by technology companies, which deliver news from various sources for paying customers. The survey of 1,045 young adults was conducted from Jan. 5 through Feb. 2, 2015 by the Media Insight Project, a partnership between the AP-NORC Center and the American Press Institute, which funded the study. The survey was conducted using online interviews in English and Spanish done with a random sample of adults age 18-34 who were initially recruited and screened to take part in the survey over the phone. Results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The margin of error is higher for subgroups. https://newsela.com/articles/millennials-news/id/12230/
The ALS "Ice Bucket Challenge" is working By Abby Ohlheiser, The Washington Post 08.01.16
Maybe you did it, pouring a bucket of ice water on your head in order to raise money for charity. Maybe you hated the viral phenomenon with a burning passion. But no matter how you felt about the "Ice Bucket Challenge" when it took over the Internet in the fall of 2014, the meme is actually getting results, according to the main charity that benefited from the campaign. With the millions raised for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research from the viral stunt, the ALS Association said it was able to fund research that identified a new gene, NEK1, that contributes to the disease, the nonprofit announced on Monday. The breakthrough is the subject of a paper published in Nature Genetics. The Ice Bucket Challenge was inescapable in 2014, as it spread like a chain letter across Facebook. It was fundraising-as-meme. Justin Bieber, Lebron James, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Gates were among the endless parade of celebrities who did it. It became a bad Halloween costume. At the time, some worried that the campaign wouldn't actually "raise awareness" for ALS, because the disease seemed to be secondary to watching the spectacle of a bunch of people volunteering for temporary misery. Or, that all those ice bucket champions wouldn't actually follow through with the donations they promised as part of the challenge. And sure, the celebrities and bros who participated in the viral phenomenon may not have talked at length about ALS, and it seems fair to assume that not everyone who did a video made a donation. But the campaign still raised a ton of money to fund research. The viral campaign raised more than $115 million for the ALS Association alone, in order to fund research into new treatments for the disease. ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a progressive neurological condition that causes muscle weakness and atrophy from the deterioration of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The disease has no cure, and it is always fatal, often within less than a decade of diagnosis. The gene discovery isn't even the only breakthrough for which the Ice Bucket Challenge is getting partial credit so far: last August — a year after the challenge went viral — scientists at Johns Hopkins said that the money raised from the campaign had a big effect on their work. "Without it, we wouldn't have been able to come out with the studies as quickly as we did," said lead researcher Philip Wong, a professor at Johns Hopkins, to The Washington Post last year. According to CNN, the ALS Association planned to spend $77 million of the $115 million raised through the challenge on research like the one that led to this particular discovery. The project in question, Project MinE, received just $1 million of that windfall. Project MinE aims to sequence the genomes of at least 15,000 people with ALS. Lucie Bruijn, chief scientist of the ALS Association, said that big, data-driven projects like Project MinE "are designed to allow exactly this kind of research and to produce exactly this kind of result." ALS, which is rare, can be either sporadic or genetic, with the vast majority of cases being the first. The new research was the result of the largest study in history of familial — or genetic — ALS, which accounts for about 10 percent of total cases. But it is likely, the ALS Association explains, that genetics play some role in a greater percentage of cases in that, just in a different way. The next step is to understand exactly how NEK1 contributes to ALS, and to develop treatments based on that understanding. "Global collaboration among scientists, which was really made possible by ALS Ice Bucket Challenge donations, led to this important discovery," said John Landers of the University of Massachusetts, who was one of the lead researchers, in a statement. "It is a prime example of the success that can come from the combined efforts of so many people, all dedicated to finding the causes of ALS. This kind of collaborative study is, more and more, where the field is headed." Meanwhile, a question remains: Will the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge ever be re-created? Sure, it's possible. But like everything else that goes viral on the Internet, a success like the ALS Association's probably won't be the result of a deliberate attempt to reproduce it. https://newsela.com/articles/ice-bucket-challenge-research/id/20168/
The Pros And Cons Of Student Social Media Use By Justin Marquis, Ph.D
In “Only Disconnect,” Andrew Reiner, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, lamented the state of American youth, particularly their preoccupation with social media. By the end of his article, Reiner advocated for social media Sabbaths, in which students would disconnect from their networks in order to more deeply engage with each other and their academic pursuits. While there are certainly negatives that can be associated with social media overuse, it is also a valuable part of the way our society functions. Here are some of Reiner’s negatives about student social media use, counterbalanced by some potential benefits to help educators take advantage of this valuable resource for student learning. The Negatives of Social Media Use for Students
. Distraction – In his article, Reiner is talking not about the momentary distraction of an isolated text message, but rather the way in which social media involvement provides an acceptable diversion from intellectual pursuits. Essentially, he is arguing that it is socially safer to stay connected to peers through always-on social media, than it is to put oneself out there by having a legitimate opinion about a serious topic and disconnecting from the social networks long enough to put it out there. . Pressure to Conform – Reiner cites examples of students confiding in him that one of the main reasons behind their 24/7 connection is a fear of not keeping up with peers or appearing “like a loser in public,” as one of his students confided in a class journal. . Risk Aversion – Reiner is unclear about whether students’ aversion to taking risks is a symptom of social media use or is directly caused by it, but the point is no less important either way. Social media engagement supports a culture of avoidance which operates in direct opposition to the idea that students need to take risks and fail in their academic endeavors in order to become successful innovators. . Shallowness – This is an addition to Reiner’s points, but social media does promote a kind of intellectual and social shallowness that could have long-term negative consequences for learners. Twitter, text messages, and other social media tools focus on brief, quick, “shallow” interactions that do not encourage either deep social engagement or intellectual exploration. There is, after all, only so much information that can be obtained in 140 characters. While the option to dig deeper may be present through embedded links in Tweets, for example, there may be little reward in pursuing those connections for students. The Positives of Social Media Use for Students While Reiner makes many valid points for negative effects of social media on students, particularly their level of academic risk taking, he fails to acknowledge some very positive effects that might make participation in social media a real benefit for students. While all of these may not be the mainstream ways that students use social media, they are important benefits that can be realized if educators are willing to embrace disruptive technology in their classrooms.
. Social Constructivism – In the age of Wikipedia, knowledge is increasingly becoming a social construction rather than the domain of an individual expert. Social media provides an easily accessible tool for helping students to work together to create their own meaning in academic subjects, social contexts, or work environments. Social media platforms are regularly used in business to enhance the connections between workers and to allow for seamless collaboration across distances. Supporting the development of this skill for students prepares them for real working experiences. . Breadth of Knowledge – While “shallowness” of knowledge and connections was listed as one of negatives of social media, the flipside of that shallowness is the broadness of the knowledge and connectedness that students can experience through social media use. It is now easier than ever to know (or find out) something about almost anything in the world through connected media. Additionally, students can be connected to a broader base of opinions and world views through instantaneous global connections. . Technological Literacy – All social media relies on advanced information and communication technologies that seamlessly work to build and support technological literacy. Simply put, one cannot be engaged in deep and meaningful uses of technology without developing the sorts of rich 21st Century skills such as information evaluation, troubleshooting, mediated communication, and others that will enable connected learners to become valuable contributors to a connected global economy. All three of these aspects of social media use are excellent matches to employer expectations and help to develop the 21st Century skills that students will need to be successful in a globally connected economy. What Can the Skeptical Educator Do? In the post “Taking Advantage of Disruptive Technology in the Classroom,” I proposed several ways for educators to use the power of social media to their advantage to promote student engagement rather than mandating social media blackouts in higher education. Here are some suggestions:
. Guided Connectivity – Encourage students to use social media to connect to experts outside of the classroom to conduct first-hand research which they can share with the class. . Knowledge on Demand – A wealth of static human knowledge and information is available online. Encourage students to provide support for their arguments or to refute your assertions. . Covert E-reading – Student can, by some estimates save up to $600 per year through using e- books on their portable devices. While that’s not specifically social media, it’s on the same device. . Encouraging Silent Reflection – Through social media platforms, every student can have the opportunity to express their opinion, share insights, or make counter arguments. This can also spark greater conversation in the classroom or in online forums. . Lesson Rewind – Instructors can post recordings of lectures online and circulate them via social media, share links to relevant resources, or answer questions via Twitter or other social mediums. All of these can invite deeper learning and support those who learn at different paces or who require remediation. There is no right or wrong answer about social media in our educational systems. It is an evolving method of communication and one that is only more likely to gain acceptance and prevalence. Rather than rail against it, it makes more sense to embrace it, minimize the negatives and teach students new ways of engaging with social media, their instructors, and each other that will support them in becoming connected learners with the skills to become successful connected workers.
http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/the-pros-and-cons-of-student-social-media-use/
Bakersfield City School District The Advisory Bulletin Page 20 of 20