Why Americans Smile so Much Article of the Week Annotation and Response

The attached news article is used to introduce and teach rhetorical analysis to high school students. These news articles were selected by me because of their relevance to modern issues.

Students annotate the text using the following criteria:

1.  Make a prediction about the text
2. Define any unknown words
3. Create questions about the text
   1. “Right there” questions can be found in the reading
   2. “Between the lines” questions show reading “beyond” the text
   3. Critical thinking questions (for question stems, click here)

1. Summarize the reading in your own words

Students will also respond to a debate style questions at the end.

The format is left open for teachers to have students annotate in different ways.

The paragraphs are numbered for easy group reading.