Bon voyage! Level 3

Chapter 5: Les faits divers et la presse

WebQuest

Activity Worksheet (92.0K)

• In this WebQuest activity your students will be comparing the headlines of online newspapers from the United States and France.



• You may wish to brainstorm with students keywords in French that will help direct them to French-language Web sites to complete this WebQuest.



• Remind students to apply their understanding of cognates and context to determine the meanings of the unfamiliar words they will encounter as they work through this activity. Encourage them to avoid trying to understand every word in the articles they read. Instead, suggest that they “read for the gist” and use what they already know about the news items to make educated guesses about the general meaning of what they are reading.



• You may wish to have students work with other students to share information from the Feuille de travail in order to maximize the opportunity to learn new vocabulary.

Expansion

• Before beginning the activity, tell students they should have a copy of a local English-language newspaper (or any newspaper to which they have access) ready when they begin the online search. As they find articles that interest them, have them see if they can find an article on the same topic in their English-language newspaper. Students can then prepare a review of the two articles, comparing and contrasting the way in which the news was reported. Discuss as a class any differences students noted and have them try to determine reasons for the differences.



• Assign a general topic related to a current event for which all students should try to find an article to read. Students could then be grouped with students who explored a different online newspaper to compare and contrast the information presented.



• Have students print out an article they read from the online newspaper they explored and present an oral summary in French of the article. If several students read the same article on different sites, the class could compare the information provided by both newspapers to determine similarities and differences.