The purpose of these assignments is to encourage you to evaluate current ethical issues and decisions affecting the field of education; thus, the news articles that you choose must address either a situation in which Biblical and ethical principles were breached or a situation in which Biblical and/or ethical principles were highlighted by the media. Your essays must be critical reviews of the articles; once you have briefly summarized the article, your review must focus on your own opinion regarding the article.
Use the News Article Review Grading Rubric to improve the quality of your essays. Adhere to all of the specific guidelines described below.
News Article Selection Guidelines
The articles or news stories that you choose must:
1. Be found in a newspaper, a news program, or another reputable news source
2. Be published within the last month
3. Be clearly related to the field of education
4. Clearly address biblical and/or ethical issues
Each article review must cover different topics. Refrain from using follow-up pieces or multiple perspectives of the same topic. For example, if you find an article discussing a new government regulation for public schools in The New York Times, you cannot use a follow-up piece written a few days later in the same paper or a different article in a different paper discussing the same topic.
Essay Guidelines
Your essay must be brief (1/2-page to 1-page, double-spaced). In the essay:
1. Summarize the article in order to demonstrate your comprehension of the content.
2. Identify key elements discussed in the article and relate those elements to concepts from the course.
3. Discuss whether the situation described in the article implements any of the concepts discussed in the course or if there are possible ways that concepts from the course could be implemented.
Include a reference page at the end of the essay with the complete citation of the article (including the publication date). If possible, include the actual article either by pasting it at the end of the document or by providing a link. Format the essay and citation in the current APA format 7th edition and include a title page; no abstract is required.
