Recognizing the Keys to Success in a Newspaper Article

Classroom Activity to Reinforce the Keys

Levels: Grades 3 - 8

Objective: Students will be able to recognize the usage of Key skills in stories of other’s success. Students will also be able to explain how the Key skills were used in such stories.

Instruction: Students will, as a class or individually, read an article or story where a person succeeds in a specific endeavor. Students will then go back through the story to find specific examples of a Key skill being used. On the paper provided for them, students can circle the parts of the story that relate to a Key skill. Most importantly, students will write in a sentence or two, how a specific Key skill was used in the story. They will do this for each Key skill they found demonstrated in the story.

Sample Article: “Fifth-grader gets jump on helping out a charity” by D. Paul Harris, published February 24, 2005. Reprinted with permission of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, copyright 2005. (article scanned and linked here)

After reading the article, students should recognize the following Keys in such a manner:

1. Love – He wanted to help raise money to assist people for a worthy cause – the American Heart Association. He cared about people with heart difficulties.

2. Attitude – To reach his goal, he had to raise more money than any one student ever accomplished at his school. He had a very positive attitude to believe he could achieve this goal. When the going got tough, he kept going.

3. Effort – He had a short time to achieve his goal. He worked after school every night and all day on the weekends even in bad weather. He demonstrated tremendous effort to accomplish his goal.

4. Motivation – Helping others and attaining the Heart Association’s top prize for Top Fund-Raising was his motivation.

5. Preparation – He had to create a plan to accomplish his goal. His plan was not only to solicit homes, but also businesses as well. He also had to plan well to fit all his work into the time available.

6. Discipline – He stuck to his plan until he reached his goal despite the major weather problems and any other that surfaced.

7. Cooperation – He worked together with his teachers, fellow students and businesses to achieve not only his individual goal, but the school’s goal as well. He was also cooperating with the Heart Association to help them accomplish their goals.

8. Performance – Because of his efforts and use of all the Key skills, he successfully achieved his ultimate goal!