August 30, 2017 : Science Fiction Round-up

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in The Denver Post. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers

Click here to download the PDF for this lesson

Activities:

1. Pretend you are an author creating a new world for a science fiction story. Divide a piece of paper into two columns. In one column, paste newspaper pictures and words for things in your everyday life that you would definitely keep in your new world. In the other column, paste pictures/words of items you would definitely not have in your new world.

2. Look at the stories discussed in today’s Mini Page. What parts of the stories are familiar? How are they like what happens or has happened on Earth? What is different from your experiences on Earth?

3. Find five people in the newspaper that you would put in a story about people from Earth exploring a society on a new planet. Explain why you would include them in your crew.

4. Which science fiction books in today’s Mini Page: (a) have characters who live or were born on Earth, (b) have characters who live on other planets, (c) are set in the past or present and (d) have characters with special powers?

5. Select a news story from the newspaper. Pretend someone in the story is really an alien who is visiting from the future. Why is the alien here? What does it want? Write an ending to the news story incorporating the alien and the alien’s mission.

Mini Page activities meet many state and national educational standards. Each week we identify standards that relate to The Mini Page content and offer activities that will help your students reach them.

This week's standard:
Students comprehend and respond to a variety of images and text. (Language arts: Reading)

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)