Yesterday I also bought a copy of National Geographic Kids for the boys. I've never bought it before, I was just curious. I wasn't that impressed, but then I probably wouldn't be!!!
Anyway, the boys are studying some exercises on distinguishing facts from opinions at the moment, and we were able to use the magazine for that!
It only took a few moments for them to identify lots of examples of opinions expressed in the magazine, and for this purpose I see the benefits! Being able to see when text is being used to promote an editorial (or other) viewpoint is very important. When a DVD is described as "great", who says so? And what about those info ads, how sneaky are they, presenting themselves as informative articles?
So THAT'S what you can do with a magazine. Read it for the purpose of dissection. Be the opinion sieve.
(And, by the way, you might want to do the same with this blogpost).
1 comment:
Biryani and H found a game, I think on the PBS kids website, that you had to decide if a statement was a fact or an opinion! something like 'He is wearing a red hat' vs 'that hat is cool'. I think it was just about understandable to H but maybe a bit advance for Biryani!!
I do have to keep emphasising, especially to S that you can't always believe everything to read or are told. This is because his teacher is v into doing work around newspaper articles and he of course introduces his own opinions on things going on in the news. Free papers (Metro etc) are also probably good sources to explain the opinion/fact thing as the copy is generally quite concise and not too intellectual in content.
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