Matthew J. Yates

October 28, 2003

Grade 4 Teacher

McDaniel College

SLM: 521-MC

Instructor: Charles Phillips

WEB DROPIN #4: “Year-Round Schooling”

Introduction	After the student completes this web dropin, he/she will be able to compare two points of view on a current events issue.
Information	Students will access two different journal articles to collect information on the pros and cons of year-round schooling. The websites that the students will visit are: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec01/year-round.html And http://www.familyeducation.com/article/0,1120,1-6762,00.html
Definition	Year-Round Schooling: having more frequent breaks throughout the year instead of one long summer vacation (same amount of school days).
Activity	1. Open up a new document in MS Word. 2. Create a heading and title: “Year-Round Schooling”. 3. Type up a few sentences about your opinion of year-round schooling. 4. Read both articles that are linked above. 5. While reading, jot some notes of important (not interesting!) information down on paper or on your MS Word document. 6. Decide which you prefer: Year-Round Schooling or Traditional School Year (September-June). 7. Write a paragraph explaining your choice and provide evidence from the article. 8. After your paragraph, tell whether or not your original opinion changed or stayed the same.
Extension	Take a class survey of opinions on this issue and use the program Graph Maker to create a graph to display this information.