I am doing a lesson plan for a 7th grade class (it's and English class, but I am trying to cross it over with current events) where I use Fox News's Shepard Smith's show because he does the "Around the World in 80 Seconds" segment, which is a very fast paced way to deliver world news. Then, the students will pick a story (usually there are at least four) and write a pragraph about the topic and what they though about the story, whether it be a stupid criminal story or about Iraq. What do you think? Any susggestions for improvement? I am planning on grading their pragraphs for grammatical errors, etc.

you could make them present it to the class in the role of a news reporter to make it interesting and get the whole class involved, rather than report submission for evaluation.