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I. Introduction and Focus
All teachers reflect on the literacy levels of students. We know that successful
readers have advantages over struggling readers – in schools and in life. I was very concerned about the low performance of students on assigned evaluating reading comprehension. While there are many methods to assess the reading ability of students, the use of the newspaper assignments in this study was particularly revealing as to the comprehension strategies and methods students use.
This study was conducted by one eighth grade English teacher at Edwards Junior High School, one of twenty-eight schools in the Nash-Rocky Mount School system. We are a 1000-student facility, serving eighth and ninth graders. The racial composition of the school is seventy percent African American, twenty-eight percent Caucasian, and two percent “other.” Edwards Junior High utilizes a team concept and simulates the concentrated curriculum concept with four ninety-minute classes each day. The eighth graders have limited schedule changes at the semester break, however, so they are in English and math all year. The English teacher conducting the research teaches three classes each day. The racial composition of the seventy-two students involved is eighty-nine percent African American, six percent Caucasian, three percent Arabic, one percent Native American, and one percent Hispanic. These classes are ability grouped. One class of twenty-five has students performing at grade level according to state standards (level three on their seventh grade EOG tests). The second class, with twenty-three participants, includes students performing slightly below grade level (high level two), and the third class, with twenty-four participants, has students performing below grade level (low level two or level one).

Before this study, I had never participated in the Newspapers in Education (NIE) program. Despite the fact that I realized the value of the resource, I was daunted by the volume of paper and the consumption of even more precious class time. This plan will allow my students access to newspapers as a resource while increasing their exposure to a variety of information sources: news articles, editorials, graphs, political cartoons and letters to the editor. Also, students have more control in their reading because they have a variety of choices available.
I developed various assignments which will require students to read different parts of the newspaper.
This research will allow me to assess the effectiveness of using newspapers with my classes. This research will help me to determine whether I should change my practices to utilize more newspaper assignments. Other teachers will benefit from this research if students’ reading abilities improve. Students will benefit from participation in this research by their exposure to more nonfiction writing as well as a variety of writing styles.
I will be a participant-observer. I will be implementing the intervention with my own students. I will be assigning the newspaper reading tasks, and I will be grading them. I will be maintaining the records on each participant.