Weekly Current Events Log (August 12th to October 6th)

The assignment must meet the following requirements:

1. For the first eight calendar weeks of the semester, August 12th to October 6th, including vacation breaks and holidays, beginning with the first week of the Summer session (regardless of when you entered the class), each student will maintain a weekly current events log. Please consult the syllabus for the due date. All logs are submitted on the due date even though you do them every week. Make sure that you have one news article and only one for each of the first 8 calendar weeks of the class. The week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday.

2. You will be responsible for one news story per week. They must be on different topics and cannot duplicate the discussion topics. For each week in one typed page minimum, you must discuss the importance, significance and effects of the story (Do not summarize the article!) and in detailand extensively(appx. one-half page each story) discuss your opinion. For purposes of this assignment, a week runs from Sunday to Saturday. In other words, a calendar week.

3. These news stories must come onlyfrom the PRESS ENTERPRISE, theLA TIMES, theWASHINGTON POST, theWALL STREET JOURNAL or theNEW YORK TIMES. The LA TIMESis available on the Internet at www.latimes.com, thePRESS ENTERPRISEis available on the Internet at www.pe.com, the NEW YORK TIMESat www.nytimes.com, the WALL STREET JOURNALat www.wsj.comand the WASHINGTON POSTat www.washingtonpost.com. There may be nominal charge for online access. You can also access these newspapers at the MSJC library at www.msjc.edu/sjclibrary.

4. These stories should be the majornews stories (headline news!) of that week.But these stories cannot duplicate the topics used in the Discussion Boards but must be on alternative topics.The stories must be a minimum of approximately 600 words each. In other words, from the first two sections of the paper, e. g. Parts A and/or B. These stories should concentrate on the national, state, or local level of government and politics. But you can include foreign policy news directly involving the United States. Do not take articles/editorials off the Opinion Page.Do not do stories on nations other than the United States, on economic issues, on environmental issues and on crime and murder stories.Use your best judgment. If you are unsure, ask me via email! Part of your grade on this assignment will be based on the judgment that you use in picking the stories.

5. No more than one story per calendar week will be counted. Include the full text of the news story following each log. Just the links are not acceptable. Copy and paste the full article into the Word document. The date of the article must be clearly visible on the article and must be on the written log.

6. The logs should be placed in chronological order, first to last.

7. You must submit the logs in one of the following two ways: (1) one email that contains two attachments only: one attachment that contains all the actual articles (not the links!) and another that contains your matching written logs, or (2) one email that contains one attachment with all the logs and all the actual articles in that attachment but match them up of course if you do this. Do not send the logs individually in multiple attachments. Do not send zip files. Do not copy and paste them into an email. Send them as email attachments only. Sending them incorrectly will affect your grade on this assignment. DO NOT SEND ME ZIP FILES!!!!

8. Your actual log is made up of two parts. Part one you discuss the importance, significance and effects of the story. Do not summarize the story! This means that you tell me why you picked it? What effect is it going to have on you? Community? State? Nation? World? What connection does it have to what you learned in class? Discuss the connection and be specific as to page and chapter. Part two is the most important part of the log which is your opinion discussion. This should be the bulk of the log (70% appx.) and it should be in detail and extensive.

9. You are going to email the above to me in a Word or rtf document as an email attachment. Consult the Learning Center if you do not know how to do this.

10. The log must be neatly typed, double-spaced, and the margins cannot be more than one inch around the border. The font must be 12 point or smaller. The type must all be of the same size and font. Use Times Roman, Courier, or Arial style fonts.

11. On each page only put the title and date of the article on the same line. Only put your name your name and class section on the first page or the title page.