Canada

IV: Here and Now

Part 2: What's New in Canada? Current Events & Media

Introduction/Overview:
Canada's proximity to the United States does not mean that people in the U.S. have much understanding of life or current events there. The two countries share many interests and concerns, ranging from economic to environmental, from sports to politics. This lesson gives students an opportunity to learn about Canada as it is today, as it happens. They will investigate news, sports, weather, entertainment and any other aspects they can think of, and will then put together a “news broadcast” to inform their fellow students about life in Canada. This lesson could also be narrowed to look only at the province of Québec (or any other province). Teachers should also look over the Francais Québécois Current Events lesson, which uses a press conference model to examine current events in Canada and could easily be modified for the non-French-speaking classroom. This lesson would fit in the social studies, speech, journalism, or English classroom.

Objectives:
Students will gain an understanding of life in Canada, Canadian politics, sports, weather, entertainment, and current events
Students will practice public speaking
Students will develop their ability to read and understand the news
Students will analyze and synthesize Canadian news
Students will learn the elements of newspaper articles
Students will write articles about issues and topics important in Canada

Procedure:

1. Divide students into pairs or small groups. Each will be responsible for covering a specific “beat” and producing a “report” or reports (either a presentation, a video or audio recording, or a written article or series of articles) on that aspect of Canada.
2. Students will imagine they are the staff of a new Canadian news program in the U.S. Their mission is to inform a non-Canadian audience about current events and life in Canada. Their program will be modeled on other news programs they have seen, or on news channels. While they (probably) will not actually be filming a broadcast, they should try to structure their reports as if they were.
3. Assign the “beats,” or coverage teams, to the small groups. Ask students to brainstorm what topics need to be covered. If they've watched or read the news, they should have some ideas. Possibilities include:
   • National (Canadian) news
   • International news (Canada's relations with the world)
   • Canada/U.S. relations
   • Canadian sports
   • Canadian weather
   • Regional news (such as the far north, the prairie, the west coast, etc.)
   • The news of individual provinces
   • Canadian entertainment industry news
4. Each team is responsible for scanning the online news sources below-newspapers, radio, television, magazines-for stories that fit their beat. They should check frequently. It might help if each member of the group is responsible for checking on certain days, rather than everyone checking all the time (or no one checking at all).
5. When the find items of interest, they should take notes on the important facts of the story, what makes it interesting or important, and what background information is necessary to make it understandable to a U.S. audience. Make it clear that they should try to find news items that will hold the attention of their audience, and should not just write down the first story they find.
6. Each day (or on specific days each week) at the beginning (or end) of the class period, one or two groups will report the news of their beat to the rest of the class. Reports should be no more than five minutes long, and could sometimes be shorter than that. The main criteria are clarity of explanation (including background, if needed) and preparedness to present. The number of reports needed in a week is the number of groups in the class, so that every group needs to have a new story ready every week.
7. Most stories will require some background explanation. For example, a story on national politics will need to explain how the Canadian parliamentary system works, while one on provincial politics might need to explain how the provinces are structured. A sports story on hockey, curling, lacrosse or some other sport more familiar to Canadians than to U.S. residents will have to explain the sport, though probably not at great length. Weather reports should explain what affects the weather in different regions of Canada, and how weather patterns are different than in the U.S.
8. Visual and other aids are optional. Entertainment reports could feature Canadian music or video, and other reports could use photographs, charts, etc.
9. Each day's report should come from a different group, but there should not be a schedule. All groups should be prepared to report on any given day, unless they have already reported that week.
10. If a teacher wishes, groups can be given a new beat each week, so that no group has to spend the entire time reporting on weather, etc.
11. The grade for each report will be based on being prepared, explaining clearly—including background, speaking clearly, and the other factors that usually go into grading presentations.
12. A final summation of the lesson could be the production of a mock newspaper or broadcast (or script) containing the stories that were reported. Whether or not there is such a final project, each group can be required to write up one or two of its reports as more formal articles for a grade.

Extensions:
Depending on the time constraints and resources, students could:

• Narrow the focus of the entire lesson to the province of Québec only.
• Look at media in the United States for coverage of Canada, search for the same stories in Canadian media, then compare the perspectives.
• An advanced version of this lesson could ask students to produce (or produce the script for) either a “60 Minutes”-like investigative news program or a point/counterpoint show like “Crossfire.” This would be good for a debate team or a speech class.
• As a class, “adopt” a town, province, sports team (especially in an unfamiliar sport), or region, then follow the news relating to it. Divide the responsibility by beats or by who will report each day.
• A French class could do this lesson, but use only media sources in French and do the daily reports in French.

Resources:
(Links will open in new windows.)

This is only a beginning. Web searches will turn up more Canadian magazines, papers, radio stations, television stations, etc., than are listed here. Students should be critical of all sites and try to find multiple sources to confirm information that seems less credible.

Newspapers and Magazines

The two main national newspapers in English are The Globe and Mail and The National Post.

The following sites have links to the Web sites of newspapers and magazines (and sometimes TV and radio stations) in the province of Québec and wider Canada. Some are published in French, some in English. In most cases there are also links to lists of media from other provinces, should students or teachers want to broaden or change the focus of this lesson.

Refdesk.com lists dozens of Canadian papers.

ABYZ News Links has a good list. It gives helpful information about the category of each paper. Has print and broadcast media.

Paperboy lists some 350 newspapers in Canada. The list can be sorted by city, province or language.

Newspaper-world.com

Onlinenewspapers.com

World-newspapers.com (only English language publications)

Broadcast

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is Canada's national radio and television broadcaster. In addition to national coverage, it has links to provincial and regional divisions, such as coverage of the far north. Students should not overlook CBC radio, many of whose programs are available online, and some of which are available as podcasts.

Radio-Canada is the French language side of the CBC (there is also a link to Télévision de Radio-Canada)

Canadian Weather