Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: House Bill Would Restrict Role Of Women In Combat: 05/23/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/combat_5-23.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What kind of work do women in the U.S. military do?

2. What work can they not do?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What did Congress debate last week in regards to the military?

Congress debated the role of female soldiers in combat zones last week, resulting in legislation that would allow women to continue serving in Army units supporting ground fighting forces but would require the Pentagon to get congressional approval for future changes.

2. What was the original amendment?

Representative John McHugh, a Republican from New York, originally proposed an amendment that would have barred women from jobs that provide supply, logistical and other support to frontline troops, which could have affected about 22,000 positions open to women in "forward support companies."

"We want women to serve everywhere, except in ground combat," he told The New York Times.

3. What was the final amendment? Is it a law?

A compromise amendment finally made it into the bill that authorizes next year's $441.6 billion Defense Department budget. It would require the military to get congressional approval before it makes changes that put women in new direct combat roles.

The full House and Senate must still approve the measure before President Bush can sign it into law.

4. What is "the risk rule" and why is important to women in the military?

In 1994 what was known as "the risk rule" was rescinded and women, formerly excluded from any job that directly exposed them to hostile fire or capture, were able to work some 80 percent of all jobs in the military, even in support units alongside combat units.

5. What kind of jobs can women in the military perform?

Women cannot serve in armor, Special Forces, field artillery and combat engineer units, but they can fly attack helicopters and attack aircraft that provide close air support for them.

Women can serve in "forward support companies," (FSCs) which provide supplies, maintenance services and medical support to ground combat units. And they can serve in transportation companies that do not have specific fighting responsibilities but that, in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, have routinely come under enemy fire as they perform their missions.

6. How many women soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan? What kind of jobs did they do?

Of the 32 women soldier deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan 22 were hostile. They included military police officers, a supply specialist, truck drivers, a food service operator and a lawyer.

7. In what countries do women serve in combat positions?

Israel requires all Jewish women (and men) to serve in the military, although combat positions are voluntary. Arab Israelis may volunteer but are not obligated.

Germany, Canada, Denmark and Norway also allow women to serve in combat units in various capacities.

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):

1. Do you think women should serve in combat positions? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.

2. Should Congress or the Defense Department decide what role women should play in the military? Explain your answer.

3. How has warfare changed in recent history? How have changes - for example, no frontline in the fighting in Iraq-effected what soldiers do and how they do it?

Send your answers, in essay form, to extra@newshour.org for possible publication!