Journalism Lesson Plan

Overview:When a bus carrying the entire baseball team from a small Ohio university plunged over a guard rail in Atlanta and crashed on the highway below on its way to a tournament, it was a tragedy. But when reports started coming in that the same intersection had been the site of 82 other accidents, the situation created a broader concern. Are some locations just more dangerous than others? What do government officials do about these situations? Who is responsible? Are there dangerous sites in your community?

Suggested time allotment: Two weeks to research dangerous local sites, one week to write a news feature/one week to write an editorial.

Objectives

Students will:

1. Read news articles for background about the Atlanta crash, particularly what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found by checking state transportation databases.
2. Explore what is available about their own community and state.
3. Interview area police and insurance agents to see if they can name local high-accident areas.
4. Explore what can be done if a site has multiple accidents.
5. If there are such sites in the vicinity, write a news feature about the situation, using the news peg of the Bluffton crash.
6. Write an editorial if the editorial board believes a site or sites exist that need work.

Standards: National Council of Teachers of English and International Reading Association Standards for English Language Arts:

4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
8. Students use a variety of technological and informational resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
12. Students use spoken, written and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion and the exchange of information).

Resources and materials:
Web sites with information:
• The Atlanta Journal-Constitution latest article when these lesson plans were posted was “Answers few as bus victims return home,” by Ariel Hart, Jennifer Brett, Aixa Pascual and Andrea, Jones, March 5, 2007. This focuses on what the National Transportation Safety Board representative suggested about the dangerous site.
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• Another AJC story is headlined “Ramp exit sign could be a ‘killer,” by Ariel Hart, March 5, 2007.
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• Read the ESPN Web site article about the Bluffton crash with an emphasis on what the road dangers are: “Feds say college bus crash site had many accidents,” March 4, 2007.
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• Watch a package about three most dangerous intersections in Lawrence, Kansas, by Laura McHugh, Feb. 2, 2007.
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• One man who lost his wife and mother-in-law because of an accident at a poorly marked intersection in Ohio gives his view of the situation to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper in this transcript from June 23, 2003.
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• Because most roads like this are the responsibility of the state department of transportation, find your state’s Web site and explore information about crash sites. For Ohio, to find crash facts by year, go to the following site. By downloading the most recent report – 2005 – you can get a 144-page pdf with all the crash sites in the state.
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