Stress Versus Distress

Stress of the Ages

Pretend that you are a reporter for your school newspaper, and you have been assigned the story "Stress of the Ages." Your editor wants you to find out if the stressors that teenagers experience today are different from or similar to those that teenagers in the past experienced.

In order to complete your article, you will need to interview two adults (a parent or guardian, grandparent, teacher and/or older sibling). Make sure you take detailed notes as you conduct your interviews. You will want to consider asking them the following questions:

• When you were a teenager, what were your feelings and concerns about appearance, physical changes, friends, dating, recreation, music, parents, and school?
• What were your greatest fears?
• How did you handle stressful events and situations?
• Now that you are older, what have you learned about stress? In other words, what advice would you give teenagers?

Once you have completed both interviews, write a one-page newspaper article based on your interviews. The end of your article should offer your readers some advice about coping with stress. Discuss at least two specific coping strategies that teenagers today can apply to their own lives when coping with stress.

Make sure to use direct quotations from the people you interviewed in your newspaper story. Remember, direct quotations are word-for-word statements from a person that are integrated into the story. Direct quotations should not make up the majority of the newspaper story. Before you begin, access the Stress of the Ages Checklist to make sure that you include all of the items required for full credit.

Once you have completed your newspaper article, please submit your work to the dropbox.