Part of the reason my students have such a hard time reading is because they bring little prior knowledge and background to the written page. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge.

To help build my students’ prior knowledge, I assign them an "Article of the Week" every Monday morning. By the end of the school year I want them to have read 35 to 40 articles about what is going on in the world. It is not enough to simply teach my students to recognize theme in a given novel; if my students are to become literate, they must broaden their reading experiences into real-world text.

Below you will find the articles I assigned* this year to my students. Please note, all articles are subject to the copyright protections stipulated by the original source.

"The Morning-after Pill" The Week (NOTE: This is the final AoW for the 2012-2013 school year.)
"The Ecosystem Inside You" The Week
"The Search for a Better Battery" The Week
"On the Frontline of the Fight Against Cybercrime" by Henry McDonald for Guardian.co.uk
"Monsanto Doesn't Want You to Know What You're Eating" by Zack Kaldveer and Ronnie Cummins for AlterNet.org
"Why Should I Care that No One's Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?" by Emily Bazelon for Slate Magazine
"Inside the World of Kim Jong Un: North Korea's Strange Hermit King" The Week
"The Military's Sexual Assault Epidemic" The Week
"Sultana High School 'Gender-Specific' Prom Attire Rule Provokes Legal Backlash" by Christine Salek for Policymic.com
"Can the Postal Service Be Saved?" The Week
"Secrets of the Most Successful College Students" by Annie Murphy Paul for Time.com
"Scientists Report First Cure of HIV in a Child, Say It's a Game-Changer" by Richard Knox for NPR.org
"Sleep Deprivation Has Genetic Consequences, Study Finds" by Eryn Brown for the Los Angeles Times
"Obama's New Vision: Doable?" and "Missed Opportunity" editorials from the Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald, respectively
"Kabul Vendors of Stolen U.S. Goods Fret About Future" by Richard Leiby for the Washington Post
"President Obama's Immigration Proposal" by Ezra Klein for the Washington Post
"Scientists Infuse 'Life' into Inanimate Compounds" by Joseph Serna for the Los Angeles Times
"Pentagon Removes Ban on Women in Combat" by Ernesto Londoño for The Washington Post
"The Baseball Hall of Fame's Shocking Message: In the End, Cheaters Lose" by Hampton Stevens for The Atlantic
"Legalizing of Marijuana Raises Health Concerns" by Roni Caryn Rabin for the New York Times
"Ending India's Rape Culture" by Naomi Wolf for Al Jazeera
"No More Curtain Calls for Elephants" Los Angeles Times
"Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?" by Martin Cohen for the New York Times
"In My Opinion: Don't Lower the Bar on Education Standards" by Leonard Pitts, Jr. for the Miami Herald
"North Africa: The Next Afghanistan?" The Week
"Will Fact Checks Always Be Ignored by Politicians?" by Dana Farrington for npr.org
"Sports Drinks Role Often Overplayed" by Chris Woolston for the Los Angeles Times
"Prop 37 Is in a Dead Heat Amid Ad Blitz" by Mark Lifsher for the Los Angeles Times
"Just How Many Facebook Friends Do You Need?" by Robin Marantz Henig and Samantha Henig for Newsweek
"Campaigns Mine Personal Lives to Get Out Vote" by Charles Duhigg for the New York Times
"Helping a Child to Come Out" by John Schwartz for the New York Times
"Three Cases to Watch in the Supreme Court's New Term" The Week, with additional information from Wikipedia.com
"High School Dropouts Costly to American Economy" CBS Reports: Where America Stands
"Five Crucial Factors to Watch, Just 58 Days from the Election" by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg, New York Times
"Five Myths About Political Conventions" by Martin Cohen, Washington Post
"Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension)" by Jenna Wortham, New York Times
"Can Obama Hold On to the Latino Vote?" The Week



Looking for previous year's Article of the Week assignments? Check out the
Article of the Week Archive.

*While I assigned these, many of the lessons were prepared by my colleagues in the Magnolia High School English Department, including Helen Goldsmith, Amie Howell, Melissa Hunnicutt, Virginia Kim, Katrina Mundy, Esther Noh, Kalli Pappas, Sherri Rothwell, Lindsay Ruben, Margaret Tagler, Robin Turner, Michelle Waxman, and Dana White.