1) Look at a world map and choose a country that you know nothing about.
2) See if
you can find news about that country in English. If possible, find sources
native to that country rather than western news sources.
3) Let the
news stories guide your search for more information about your chosen country.
For example, an article about an election might lead you to look up information
in Wikipedia about the country’s government. An article about health might lead
you to the CIA World Factbook where you can find information about population.
4) Now
think about how you want to document your investigation and show it to the rest
of the class. A Google Doc that you share with your teacher is a good start. If
you have a blog in Blogger, you could create page that you update with new
information.
5) Having
chosen your form of documentation, think about how to structure the information
you’re collecting by using a hierarchy of headings. For example, you might have
a section called “Overview” with subheadings like “Why I chose this country”,
“Population”, “How to get there” etc. and then have headings for each news item
you include.
6) Keep a
list of sources – if possible, note authors, date of publication as well as the
links you use.
7) Let this
project run and run – be ready to show your work to the class from time to
time.
