Closure Activity
At the end of this unit, students will be using a word processing program and a publication program, such as Microsoft Publisher, to create a newspaper/newsletter from the point of view of a news team in 1806 who are creating a special edition paper all about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Each member of the literature circle will create their article for the newspaper from their internet investigator jobs that they have completed while reading this book. If you are using this unit to teach the students about the jobs (as a first literature circle), I recommend saving investigator job until the last section so that the students can then do this closure activity. You as the teacher will act as the Editor of this paper. The students come up with a name for their paper and they can use their own creativity to create their article or piece for this paper.
I suggest giving students various local newspapers to look at and compare/contrast. What do all the papers have in common? What other things do newspapers have besides articles? As students begin planning their newspaper, have them discuss what story needs to be the front page story, what page to put each story/article on, and where do they put any extra stuff (comics, crossword puzzles, weather forecast, etc)?
Each student should end up with a copy of the paper to keep. You could even make copies for the whole class so that this group of students are sharing what they have learned with the rest of their class.