Better Late Than Later ... More About Star Magazine

          I took a bit of vacation the last week and found it a bit hard to get a chance to sit down and post something.  However, I am back and ready to do some free writing.

          I got asked to describe more about how I make use of Star magazine with ELL students.  So, I am going to revisit that topic for those that asked.  Because the magazine is very visual, I have included a scan of the article for reference.

          Generally the magazine has three or four really good articles; each of one to three pages in length.  Also, every issue has a couple sections that repeat through every issue.  This is one of those repeated sections; "Star Buzz".  When I am preparing a lesson, I like to start off by developing some background for the readings.  This article provides a good place to start.  Jimmy Fallon is a well-known personality and most ELL students will have some idea of who he is or you might be able to show a clip to sort of introduce him to those who don't.

          After a short discussion, which also stimulates conversation, I will introduce five to ten new words that I would like the students to learn.  I try to use words that share something, to sort of keep a theme for the lesson.  For this article I would probably only go with five and I would try to group them around divorce or perhaps argument.  And, in some cases the list of words might include some idiomatic phrases as well.  With this in mind, I would select 'mend the rift', 'acrimony', to 'argue', 'moody', and 'frustrated'.  Obviously there a couple others that would fit in this group as well, and I might be inclined to have the students try and hunt those words down on their own.

          The next step would be to have a couple students read the selection including the side bars.  I also like to have the students try to explain what they read in their own words and to try and puzzle out the meaning of the vocabulary words as well.  I will often have the students try to figure out the overall tone of the article by using the pictures as clues.  I might do this as a pre-reading exercise.  And, finally I would end the lesson with a few comprehension questions as a check on both subjective and objective understanding.  For example I might ask about their ski trip for a subjective response and maybe something about how his wife might feel in search of a more objective understanding of the article.

          There is so much more one can do with this article and I am just giving you a short look at what I might try.  Other ideas might be to try and explain why it is called "Star Buzz" or to use it as a prompt for some writing, or to stimulate even more conversation about marriages and divorces.  In fact a whole unit could be built around marriage and divorce using this article as a portal.

          As you can see the Star may be a bit simplistic for an American who has seen it in the grocery line for years, but for an ELL student it is a look into our culture and it is a great tool from which to learn.