The subjects we cover in WMST 200 appear in the news daily. Part 1 of the Current Topic Project is a report on a news article which will connect our course work to the most current developments of interest to the field, especially those that impact people’s day-to-day lives.
Select a news article published in the last 12 months that focuses on a topic of interest to Women’s Studies [choose from the list below, or choose your own based on the criteria described in the next section of this assignment].
After you have read your chosen news article, respond to the questions below in a 700-1,000 word (3-4 page) report about the article and what you have learned, focusing on the aspects of interest to Women’s Studies:
Title, author, publication, date, and url for your news article.
Brief (1-2 sentence) summary of the main topic of the article.
Why would this article be of particular interest to a Women’s Studies student or scholar? If you’re not sure, one place to start is to review the information about Women’s Studies found in Module 1: What Is Women’s Studies?.
What did you learn that you didn’t already know by reading this article?
Which topic, person, example, or idea in the article would you like to know more about? What questions would you suggest the reporter ask in a follow-up article?
What social, political, personal, historical, economic, artistic, or other impact might the information in this article have? Why?
Is there anything you read or thought about while reading the article that has relevance to your life outside of this class or outside of the article itself?
Include quotes and examples to support your discussion as part of your responses to questions 3-7. Remember to include in-text citations and a References list for all references to the article or class learning resources, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
note that this assignment is a report, not an essay. You must write in complete sentences, but you do not have to write it as an essay with a thesis, body paragraphs, etc.. Instead, it is recommended that you number each response as you answer the questions. To meet the word count requirement, be sure to answer questions 3-7 in detail, and give specific examples or quotes (cited!) for each answer.
