Current Events Presentation on Voting Rights

This activity is designed to introduce and encourage students to become aware of current issues in the community, state, nation, and world. You will search for original current event articles a few times this semester and give mini-presentations. Some possible topics you may research include: political figures, elections, campaigns, political crises, major court cases, major crime investigations, civil rights issues, famine or natural disasters, developments in science and technology, business and finance, health breakthroughs or disease outbreaks. Stories centered on sports and entertainment are not acceptable for this assignment.

This current event presentation must be about current voting rights or vote suppression. You may search newspapers, news magazines, or news-oriented websites.


Your presentation should compare your chosen topic to the vote suppression that happened during the Reconstruction era.

Once you find an article, you must do the following:

• Include the article in your document after the summary and the bibliographical citation.  (5 points)
• Include a short summary of the article. Summary must be neatly written or typed. Summary must include (5 points):
• Who and what the article is about
• Where, when, and why
• Implications for the community, state, country, or world
• Whether and how it affects you
• How it relates to any current class discussions
• Include bibliographic citation (on summary page) in the following formats (5 points):
• Newspaper article: Author's last name, first name. "Article Title." Newspaper name Date: page number.
• (example) Brubaker, Bill. "New Health Center Targets County's Uninsured Patients." Washington Post 24 May 2007: LZ01.
• Magazine article: Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Periodical Day Month Year: pages.
• (example) Poniewozik, James. "TV Makes a Too-Close Call." Time 20 Nov. 2000: 70-71.
• Website article: Author's last name, first name. "Article Title." Name of online publication. (Date posted). Date accessed. <Complete URL>.
• (example) Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites. (16 Aug. 2002). 4 May 2006 <http://alistapart.com/articles/writeliving>.

Your spoken presentation needs to include the information in your summary. Your presentation needs to be at least sixty seconds long, and should have a strong beginning and a solid ending. Practice good eye contact and volume to get the best grade.