1. Sherlock Holmes

Mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Scotland on May 22, 1859. His best-known and most beloved character is the detective Sherlock Holmes. Several movies and TV shows have been made about the detective, including a blockbuster movie that came out last year. In groups, use the newspaper for ideas to write an outline for a mystery story or play. Include a summary of the plot and a list of characters. Share what your group created with the class, and ask for their feedback: Does your plot make sense? Is your mystery too obvious? Do you have enough characters? Then write the story or play, incorporating the class's suggestions.

Learning Standards: Planning and drafting texts; revising and editing students' own writing; helping others revise and edit texts in such areas as content, perspective and effect.

2. School Subjects

Many college students in the United States are entering college academically unprepared. About a third of first-year college students have to take at least one remedial or catch-up course to get them up to speed in math, English or another subject. The U.S. government is encouraging states to adopt stricter school standards, so students won't be promoted from grade to grade if they're not ready to move up. Use the newspaper to test your English skills. Pick an article and mark which words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Trade your article with a classmate and check each other's work.

Learning Standards: Employing multiple strategies to recognize words as students construct meaning, including the use of context clues, word roots and affixes and syntax; recognizing nouns, verbs and modifiers; using reading for multiple purposes, such as enjoyment, clarifying information and learning complex procedures.

3. Activist

Singer, actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne died last week at age 92. Horne broke ground for African American performers when she became one of the first black actors to sign a long-term contract with a Hollywood movie studio. Look through the newspaper for an example of another activist who is working to change things. Write a newspaper profile of the person.

Learning Standards: Writing fluently for multiple purposes to produce compositions, such as personal narratives, persuasive essays, research reports and poetry; identifying and explaining how individuals in history demonstrate good character and personal virtue.

4. What's in a Name

The U.S. Social Security Administration has released its annual list of the most popular baby names. Isabella was the most popular name for girls born last year. The top boy's name was Jacob, but the boy's name that moved up in the list the fastest was Cullen. Both Isabella and Cullen are characters in the "Twilight" vampire books. In groups, pick five names in the newspaper. Do some research and make a chart that shows what language each name originated in, what the name means and real people or characters from books, movies, TV shows or songs who have the name. Add your name to the chart, too.

Learning Standards: Acquiring information from multiple sources and then organizing and analyzing it; organizing data using tables, charts, graphs, spreadsheets and databases.

5. Siphon

A scientist in Australia found a mistake in the dictionary. Stephen Hughes noticed that the definition of "siphon" was incorrect in the Oxford English Dictionary. He then realized that it was incorrect in every dictionary he had. A siphon is a tube used to transfer liquid from one container to another. All the dictionary entries said that atmospheric pressure is the force that moves the liquids, but really the force is gravity. Be a copy editor and see if you can spot any mistakes in the newspaper this week. Look at spelling, grammar and spacing in articles, captions, classifieds and ads. If you don't discover any errors in the newspaper, check out a few online news sources. Share what you find with the class, and talk about how a mistake in a news source might influence your opinion of the source.

Learning Standards: Demonstrating a variety of strategies for planning, drafting, revising and editing different forms of texts for specific purposes; critically questioning the sources of data, the techniques used to collect, organize and present data and the inferences drawn from the data.