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: President Bush Continues Trip to African Nations, 7/9/03
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/africa_7-09.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What stories about African countries have you seen or read in the news recently?

2. What is your view of life in Africa?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What two countries has President George Bush visited so far this week in his first official trip to the African continent?

In his first official trip to the African continent this week, President George Bush visited a slave-trading outpost on Senegal's Goree Islands and met with South African President Thabo Mbeki to discuss a host of topics, including a push to secure the resignation of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

2. In what ways has terrorism affected some African countries?

Terrorists have sought refuge in some African countries, made vulnerable by economic troubles and political unrest, and many Africans have died in terrorist attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets.

In 1998, terrorists simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people. Last year, terrorists bombed an Israeli-owned hotel in Nairobi. The attack resulted in the deaths of sixteen people.

3. When was Liberia founded and by whom?

Also making headlines in the last few weeks, the situation in Liberia, a West African nation formed in 1847 by freed American slaves, where escalating violence has ended a short-lived cease-fire in the country's 14-year civil war.

4. How is President Bush determining whether to send peacekeeping troops to Liberia?

President Bush has sent an assessment team, comprised of U.S. military personnel, to Liberia to determine whether the U.S. should take a peacekeeping role in the country.

5. Which two U.S. officials are traveling with President Bush on his trip to Africa?

President Bush was originally scheduled to visit several other countries in Africa earlier this year, but postponed the trip because of the Iraq War. Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice are traveling with the President.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

Research one of the countries that President Bush will visit during his trip to Africa? In a short essay, discuss that country's successes and its problems. Include what you think life might be like in that country for someone your age. Present your essay in a class discussion.