Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support. FOR THE WEEK OF MAR. 30, 2015 Crusade calls for changing $20 bills to add first woman on U.S. paper currencyWomen write about money and related topics. Look for an example in the business or main news section.
Find coverage of a woman in any profession. Why does or doesn't that job appeal to you?
Lastly, hunt for news about another effort to achieve some kind of change. Why does or doesn't it sound like a good idea?
"What's in your wallet?" actor Samuel Jackson asks in credit card commercials. One answer is: Paper money with just male faces in the center. Now there's a grass-roots effort to change that. A campaign called campaign aims to put a woman from American history on the $20 bill by 2020, replacing President Andrew Jackson. Fifteen candidates are listed at womenon20s.org, which says: "It's our mission to generate an overwhelming people's mandate for a new $20 bill." Congress needn't get involved. A president simply can ask the treasury secretary to make it happen. The group's nominees including feminist Betty Friedan, abolitionist Sojourner Truth and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Other candidates are Harriet Tubman, who freed about some 300 slaves through the Underground Railroad, and Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the fight for women's right to vote. Backers of the change say they picked Jackson (rather than Washington on $1 bills or Abraham Lincoln on $5 notes) because he signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that forced more than 18,000 Native Americans to march to Oklahoma (known as the Trail of Tears). In Australia, by the way, a man on one side of each currency note and a woman is on the other.
Front Page Talking Points is written by
Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2025
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