Children in El Salvador

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.6

Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.

Objective

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to decipher the author's point of view, and determine what kind of specific phrasing or words she uses to try and advance her point to the audience.

Introducing the Lesson

In this lesson, you will analyze Kayli Plotner's Pulitzer Center supported reporting project, "Children's Homes in El Salvador." The project is about the impact El Salvador's violence and poverty has on children. The first resource, titled "Where is Home? Children's Rights in El Salvador" explains the El Salvador's child protection laws, using video and text. The second resource, called "El Salvador's Orphans: Broken Homes, Broken Country" uses photos and text to describe poverty's effects on children in El Salvador.

Warm-Up

Discuss the following in teams and be prepared to share with the class.

• If you were to run a orphanage, what services would you provide?
  • Of these services rank them in order of importance.
  • If you did not have enough money for all of your services, which ones would you drop?

Introducing the Resources

Explore the resources attached. After exploring each resource, answer the accompanying comprension questions.

• What tone does the author convey in her reporting?
  • Select passages from the resources to support your argument. 
• Do you think El Salvador's child protection laws successful? If not, how would you report on it differently?

Extension Activity

• Create a pro/con list for LEPINA.
• After creating this list come up with five policies El Salvador could enact to reduce the number of "cons." Be sure to explain why you think the policies would work.