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 a 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: Olympian Hopes to Draw Attention to Darfur Crisis, 03/20/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/cheek_3-20.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Who are some celebrities who use their fame to bring attention to social or global issues?

2. Who is Joey Cheek? Why is he famous?

3. Why has Darfur, Sudan been in the news lately?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Who is Joey Cheek and why is he in the news right now if the Olympics are over?

When Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek donated his $40,000 bonus for winning gold and silver medals in Turin, Italy, to Sudanese refugees in Chad, he said it was a way to focus attention on a growing humanitarian crisis in Africa.

"The money I donated was not a huge dollar figure for the amount of help that's needed over there, but it was a gesture that then sparked other people to give," he said.

2. What is Right to Play?

The money went to Right to Play, an organization that helps children in underprivileged communities through sports. The organization says it has raised more than $400,000 since Cheek's announcement.

3. Where is Darfur and what is going on there?

In Darfur, the western region of the African nation of Sudan, militias are attacking civilians in what U.S. and other international leaders and aid groups are calling genocide.

At least 200,000 people have died and 2 million have fled to the neighboring country of Chad to live in refugee camps.

4. What cause is Cheek promoting? What is his goal?

Cheek is visiting college campuses around the nation to talk about what is happening in Darfur and promote a letter-writing campaign called Million Voices for Darfur to encourage U.S. intervention in the crisis. He plans to be one of the speakers at the Save Darfur Coalition rally in Washington, D.C. on April 30.

5. Why did Cheek get involved in the Darfur issue?

His involvement, he said, stems from an appreciation of the advantages he has received in life.

"I think it's our obligation, being as lucky and blessed as we are in this country to have the wealth and the opportunities we have, to share that with the rest of the world," he said.

6. Was Cheek always interested in global issues?

Cheek said he wasn't always tuned into global issues.

"In my past when I'm on the road, I don't take time to vote, I don't take the time to look up candidates and that's been to my detriment. That's been something that I aim to fix."

Now he said he believes, "Apathy is no excuse for having any type of crisis."

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Joey Cheek has gotten involved with an organization that is calling for more U.S. intervention in the Darfur crisis. Research the situation in Darfur. Summarize what is happening there and what U.S. involvement is now. What further involvement do you think the U.S. should take in the region? Explain your answer.

2. What impact do you think elite athletes and other famous people can have on global issues? Is this a good thing? Why or why not?

3. What global issues do you think are important? How would you get other people, including your classmates, interested in learning about them? What can you do to make positive changes?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any 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.