Ok, this is going to sound dumb, but I don't know what the following bolded words are in terms of parts of speech and was wondering if Massassi could maybe help?

"Can you believe the news about the airplane crash?"

"go to the movie with us."

"the cookies"

"they should meet us at the school"

I got most of them down except for those words, I don't know what part of speech they are, please help.

"the" is an article, "about" and "with" are prepositions, "should" I think is an adverb.

I could be wrong though. I'm an engineer not an English major.

About and with are prepositions.

In traditional English grammarian terminology,
'the' is an article, and 'can' and 'should' are modal verbs.

In linguistics,
'the' is a determiner and 'can' and 'should' can also be called modals, or simply 'auxiliaries'.

Article and modal verb are probably the terms you want.

ninja edit: Can and should definitely aren't adverbs, though.

Ok, thanks guys, if I get the passing 90% I'm required I will know who to thank

Can = Verb (helping verb)
The = article (a special kind of adjective)
About = Preposition
Should = Verb (helping verb)

Is a helping verb the same thing as an auxillary verb? Cos I know 'should' and 'can' are auxiliary verbs.

Probably.

Yes, 'Auxilium' is Latin for help.

Everyone got answers before I got in here.