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"It didn't take long for civic journalism to move from election experiments to deep enterprise work on major issues plaguing communities - race, drugs, education, the economy. Techniques involved listening to how the communities framed their problems and convening conversations about how they might be addressed. Yet major differences emerged between civic journalism and traditional investigative journalism. Unlike traditional investigative journalism, civic journalism's enterprise projects, "didn't have bad guys attached to them," Friedland said. Rather they mined the muddy swamps of tough issues enveloping communities. These projects focused less on measuring the nature of the engagement and instead focused on outcomes. The most systematic and deepest research into civic journalism was undertaken in 2002 by Friedland and PhD student Sandy Nichols. The Pew Center opened its files on 651 civic journalism projects that had applied for funding or for recognition in the Knight-Batten Awards for Excellence in Civic Journalism between 1994 and 2001. For months, Nichols read every project and coded them by engagement strategies, outcomes and story frames. You can read the final report or the executive summary. Among its highlights: At least one fifth of all U.S. daily newspapers - 322 of the nation's 1,500 dailies practiced civic journalism during that time. They hailed from 220 cities in all but three states. But, the authors said, the real number, if you included projects that didn't cross the Pew Center's transom, was much higher Newspaper editors asserted that their civic journalism increased public deliberation, civic problem solving, volunteerism and changed public policy.a  96 percent of the civic journalism projects used an "explanatory" story frame to cover public issues instead of a more traditional "conflict" frame, which often reports two opposing viewpoints. "The clear shift to explanatory frames is perhaps one of civ

"Teaching Mockingbird suggests a central question around which a class's study of Harper Lee's novel can be organized: What factors influence our moral growth? What kinds of experiences help us learn how to judge right from wrong?  As students read and reflect on the novel, they return to this question and can begin to make deeper and broader connections between the novel and their own moral and ethical lives. They begin by considering the pivotal moments in their lives that shape who they are and their senses of right and wrong.  Then they analyze how the characters in To Kill A Mockingbird change over the course of the story, identifying pivotal moments in the story that influence how the characters think about morality and justice.  The complete Teaching Mockingbird guide also introduces models of moral development that have emerged from the field of developmental psychology, which students can use as the basis for even deeper character analysis."

"There are good reasons to teach Julie Otsuka's novel today. In addition to helping students build historical empathy, I believe there is a chance that reading about distant lives can help us learn empathy for those around us today. When the Emperor Was Divine is a difficult story about difficult history. It can be deeply unsettling to teach and to learn about a moment in our country's past that was identified at the time and has been rightly described ever since as a source of national shame. It can be hard to reconcile the historical reality of Japanese internment with American ideals, past and present. However, the difficulty of this story does not excuse us from teaching it. Indeed, in our present moment, filled with xenophobic rhetoric, building empathy is more important than ever."

" These are signs of unusual times. With Mr. Trump in the White House, the obsession with politics that has many adult Americans fiercely focused on the Senate's latest confirmation hearing and the president's last Twitter message has filtered down to those not yet of voting age. High school and even middle school students are showing a level of civic engagement not seen in years, their teachers and principals say. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE Donald Trump Loves New York. But It Doesn't Love Him Back. DEC. 9, 2016 Betsy DeVos Confirmed as Education Secretary; Pence Breaks Tie FEB. 7, 2017 "

The poet reading "Facing It." It includes a bio of the poet and resources for using it in the classroom.

Close read activity of FDR's first Inaugural Address

It was just such an exciting time across the board, so much change going on -the end of World War I, women getting the right to vote, Prohibition being enacted, of course, which is where the series begins. It was just a great time of upheaval. And when I had read about the character Steve plays, Nucky Thompson, this was just such a perfect guy to set a series around.

By the time you read this, Terry Jones will have burned the Quran. Or not.

SOMETIME back in 2000, Allen S. Rout, a systems programmer from Gainesville, Fla., posted a few photos of his 5-month-old son, Stephen, on his personal Web site. They were the kind of photos that every parent takes, but one in particular stood out: Stephen wearing a pair of red overalls, smiling in a crib. " The photo had faded from memory until last July, when Mr. Rout, curious about his online reputation, did a Google search of himself. Deep within the results pages, he found the picture of Stephen. Only, it wasn't exactly the same picture. He was surrounded by cartoonish word bubbles filled with Japanese writing: "Don't call me baby!" they read. "Call me Mr. Baby!" And there were other images in which the photo was transformed further: Stephen has a pompadour in one, a head full of snakes in another. His face was pasted onto Kurt Cobain's head, carved into Mount Rushmore and tattooed onto David Beckham's torso. He was an eight-bit video game character. He became a three-dimensional sculpture.

Ginsberg reading lines from "America" is sampled and put to a hip hop beat with some psychedelic paintings.

Read highlighted parts of sections Background, Local Context, and Religious Context for Wednesday.

"What is the difference between civil rights and civil liberties? How does a bill become a law? Why do we have an electoral college, and how does it work? These might seem like very basic questions and could be considered general knowledge, but to the American public, they are simply esoteric: Though blind patriotism has turned to nationalism with unprecedented fervor, 69 percent of Americans cannot even name the three branches of government."

"Here's the one big lesson we've learned: Agency begins with being able to ask your own questions and continues with the ability to participate in decisions that affect you wherever and whenever they are made. That's the one big lesson from nearly three decades of work and it has implications from the micro level of our daily lives to the highest levels of decision-making in our democracy. For it's possible to imagine a dictatorship that discourages citizens from asking questions, but we should not accept a democracy in which questions cannot be asked. A strong sense of agency, and self-efficacy on a fundamental level is actually a precursor, a foundation for more effective action on any level of our democracy. It's the beginning of the journey towards democratic action, not its completion. Skip over it however, and you get pretty much the status quo we've got today. If you're happy with that, don't bother to read on. How do we translate this one big idea, one big lesson into action? We've been working on trying to answer just one question in the simplest way possible: How can we democratize access to the deceptively simple yet very sophisticated skills of question formulation and effective participation in decisions? Let's focus here on just the first skill; question formulation. It is no small matter to teach the skill; it's often developed only through high levels of professional education and with years of experience. Indeed, access to them can be difficult and costly. In 2002, The New York Times asked college presidents what should students learn in four years of college. There was a consensus that students could not come out of college knowing all there is to know so college should, according to Leon Botstein of Bard College, "engender a lifelong habit of curiosity, as opposed to becoming more convinced that you are an authority." He went on to say students should learn "analytical skills of interpretation and inquiry. In other word

"The videos demonstrate the process of facilitating group learning about media literacy. Students are prompted to think critically about all media messages by asking questions such as: * Who produced this media message, and for what purpose? * Is the information credible, how would you know? * What techniques were used to communicate this message? * Who might be the target audience? * Who might benefit or be harmed by this message? * How might other people interpret this message differently? As shown in the videos, teachers respond with evidence-based prompts such as: "What makes you say that and where is that shown in the document?" These literacy principles are often preceded by content questions that encourage students to analyze media documents, including: * What are the main messages here about… (fill in the blank)? * What bias or point of view do you see here? * What information is left out of this message and why? Project Look Sharp developed these materials after assessing how some teachers present media documents to illustrate key points rather than to engage students. The videos include running annotations that explain how to conduct discussions about media messages using the constructivist methodology. Teachers will learn how to shift their practices from predominantly delivering facts to engaging students in rigorous analysis, application of key knowledge, and reflection on their understanding of the mediated world they live in."

If "Broadway Melody" had a tune there wouldn't be anything to stop it from being another cinema "Fool." It's the first flash New York has had as to how the studios are going after musical comedy numbers and there's no question of the potent threat to the stage producers. The boys had better lift the body over to this 45th street corner and take a peck at the latest Hollywood menace.

A not so positive review of Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush

"The Gold Rush" is a distinct triumph for Charlie Chaplin from both the artistic and commercial standpoints, and is a picture certain to create a veritable riot at theatre box offices. It is the greatest and most elaborate comedy ever filmed, and will stand for years as the biggest hit in its field, just as "The Birth of a Nation" still withstands the many competitors in the dramatic class.

The Birth of a Nation" is the main title David Wark Griffith, the director-in-chief of the Mutual Film Corporation, gave to his picturized version of Thomas Dixon's story of the South, "The Clansman." It received its first New York public presentation in the Liberty theatre, New York, March 3. The daily newspaper reviewers pronounced it as the last word in picture making.

Most Americans want their children to grow up to be "colorblind" when it comes to race. As a result, many parents, particularly white ones, don't discuss race with their children at all. But research demonstrates that babies as young as six months can recognize racial differences. And as they get older, kids start mentally categorizing people based on their race, whether they've been taught to by their parents or not. In fact, the authors of the book NurtureShock argue that parents' silence on the question may be exacerbating the problem. In the absence of open discussions about the role of race in kids' lives, they draw their own conclusions, some of which would be horrifying to progressive parents.