Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature 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: President Remains Committed to New Iraq Plan Despite Critics, 1/16/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/troops_1-16.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is President Bush's plan for Iraq?

2. What have other people proposed the U.S. do about the violence in Iraq?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. When did President Bush announce his new plan for Iraq? What is one of the main elements of this new plan?

President Bush unveiled a revised plan for Iraq in a live televised address Jan. 10.

One of the elements of his plan was to send 21,000 new troops to help secure the capital Baghdad, where armed militias have killed thousands of civilians.

U.S. troops also will work to provide security in the southern part of the country, called the Anbar province.

"Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs," President Bush said in his address.

2. What is sectarian violence?

Much of the fighting in Iraq is between the different religious sects Shiite and Sunni.

During the reign of Saddam Hussein, Sunnis were in control and life in many ways was easier for them.

The Iraqi government has gone after Sunni militias, but there are also Shiite groups accused of murdering hundreds of civilians.

3. How does sectarian violence impact U.S. policy in Iraq?

Critics of Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, a Shiite, say he has been unwilling to go after the Shiite militia group known as the Mahdi Army, which is led by al-Maliki's political ally, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The cleric's influence on Iraqi politics has hindered past U.S. attempts to secure some areas of Baghdad, including the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.

4. What are some different responses Democrats have to the president's plan?

Some Democrats, like Representative John Murtha from Pennsylvania, a strong opponent of the war in Iraq, have threatened to cut off military funding as a way of bringing troops home.

Other Democrats have suggested "softer" alternatives such as forcing lawmakers to face voter wrath by going on the record as supporting the surge in Iraq or not.

5. What has been the response to the plan by Republicans?

While most Republicans have publicly supported the president's new plan, there were several vocal critics.

6. How has the president responded to critics of his new Iraq plan?

And despite Democratic opposition, the administration has vowed to move forward with the new plan.
"We have money in the '07 budget, which has been appropriated by the Congress, to move these troops to Iraq, and the president will be doing that," national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on ABC's "This Week."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with President Bush's new plan for Iraq? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.

2. The Democrats are in control in Congress. They have mentioned several responses to the president's plan, including cutting off funds or non-binding resolutions. What impact will either plan make? Are they good ideas or not? Explain your answer.

3. What is your prediction about the war in Iraq? What will the situation be in five years?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.