Inquiry 1: "Clues in the News"

 Go back to Table of Contents

Newspapers to Use: Front Pages of November 7, 1940 & November 26, 1990
Note: Students work individually to begin with then work as a large team to piece together the two newspaper front pages.

Essential Questions:
What clues can newspapers give us about past events, people, and places?
What are the "five W's & H" of historical inquiry AND newspaper reporting?
What are the parts of a newspaper?

Vocabulary:
Logo: The name of the newspaper, often written in a fancy typeface such as Old English.

Headline: Big, bold words at the top of a story. A banner headline is the biggest headline on the page.

Caption or Cutline: The words that appear below a picture, often explaining its contents.

Advertisement: A portion of the page that is purchased and usually used to sell a product.

Index: The listing of newspaper sections and their page numbers.

Folio: The date, volume number, and price information that is often located under the name of the paper.

Byline: An author's name as it appears with an article.

Body text: The words that make up the main part of an article.

Inquiry Set-up for Students:
Every historic event, person, and place is a puzzle. In order to solve it, you have to think like a detective and search for evidence. In this case, our puzzle pieces come from old newspapers, and it is your job to figure out the following things:

1. What clues does the puzzle piece give you that might suggest a time period, a story, a person, place, or thing that might help you match it to a real newspaper?
2. Can you match the puzzle piece to a page of the newspaper? If so which one?
3. What is the date of the matching newspaper, and what is the story to which your piece belongs?
4. What part of the newspaper does your puzzle piece represent? (headline, body text, advertisement, etc.)

Activity Plan: Teacher Directions
Step 1: Make a full-size copy of the front page of the 1940 and 1990 newspapers. Cut the copies into puzzle pieces that are approximately 4" x 4" making sure there is at least one piece per student.
Note: If you would like to use the puzzle pieces again, try laminating the pieces to increase their durability.

Step 2: Distribute one puzzle piece to each student. Have students read through their puzzle piece, listing as many "who, what, where, when and how" questions as possible. For example:

1. Who is named in the story?
2. What is the story about?
3. Where did the newspaper originate?
4. When was the newspaper published?
5. How did the event affect people in the Pacific Northwest?

Have students share their 4W & Hs, trying to match information and figure out to what historic event they relate. Make a list on the board of the various events students hypothesize.

Step 4: Have the students work in a large group to fit their puzzle pieces together. This can be done on the white board or floor using tape on the back of each puzzle piece. Students then use the newspaper sets to locate the stories and rewrite their who, what, where, when, and how questions and answers using the information provided in the article.
Alert the students that they are working to piece together two different front pages.

Step 5: Now that the students know the articles relate to the collapse of the Narrows Bridge and the sinking of the I-90 bridge, use other sources of information to give them the "big historical picture" of the two bridges. Examine what issues surround the bridges today.
Information sources may include:

• Book, Bridging the Narrows
• Newspaper clippings (past and present)
• Web sites: Numerous sites exist for the Narrows Bridge and an Internet search will reveal many options.

Step 6 (Follow-up): Students identify and locate a bridge in their area, trying to answer as many of the following questions as possible:

• Who designed and/or built it?
• What type of bridge is it?
• When it was built?
• Why it was built (purpose)?
• How it was built, and how long did it take to build?

This activity may be applied to any bridge no matter how large or small as long as it is a road or pedestrian bridge.

EALRs:
Reading 1.1, 1.2, 1.5
Communication 3.1-3.3
History 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.2