Writing a news article activity

Art in Early Childhood: Art has traditionally been an important part of early childhood programs. Friedrich Froebel, the father of kindergarten, believed that young children should be involved in both making their own art and enjoying the art of others.

Much has been written about the value of newspapers in education AiexAnteparaChandlerDycusKitao Swanfor example, devotes a couple of pages to only some of the grammatical complexities of newspapers.

Moreover, newspapers are lexically complex; due to a lack of space newspaper articles tend to package as much detail as possible into the smallest possible space, which results in a high density of information Bermejo They often try to process what they read piece by piece and this can greatly inhibit their efforts at getting even a general understanding of a newspaper article.

They tend to read each sentence, two or three times in order to process it and this approach obviously increases in complexity as they continue reading the article.

Language & Lit

Each time they encounter additional information, it is added to what has already been read, and this brings about a re-structuring of the whole, which may require the student to return to something they have already read in order to clarify the new sentence.

Students need to be reminded to focus on meaning rather than form. The texts are authentic and compelling AiexChandlerqualities that heighten motivation AiexBermejoAnteparaGrundy They are authentic and the focus is on meaning rather than form Bermejo Moreover, research suggests that reading in general is important to general language competence, so the ability to read and understand newspapers can be seen to support successful second language acquisition AnteparaTaiwo Developing the Lesson Plan In order to understand how this lesson plan developed, it is necessary for me to first outline my objectives.

I wanted the benefits of using authentic materials, for example, exposure to cultural knowledge, enhanced motivation, authentic responses to the material, etc. I also wanted to develop students' general reading fluency and their ability to use context to garner the meaning of unknown words.

In practice I found that the vibrant discussions I had planned never came to fruition as I ended up explaining the meaning of vocabulary to students.

Whereas I had planned to spend most of the time discussing the students' personal responses to the issues raised in the article in an attempt to expand world knowledge, I often found myself doing the complete opposite of what I had planned and my dynamic newspaper article lesson degenerated into a series of lengthy explanations of the vocabulary or journalistic conventions used.

I found this to be self-defeating. Techniques for teaching newspaper articles abound. However, the techniques I have read about seemed to work well in longer lessons minutes where there was time to explain vocabulary, if necessary and then talk about the content of the article, they did not work so well within my teaching context where lessons are generally short -- at only 40 minutes.

Moreover, I found preparing newspaper articles to be somewhat labour intensive and given the transient nature of news, I wanted to get some value for my efforts.

Opening Line Strategy #3

It was with this in mind that I came up with the idea for a content-free generic newspaper article lesson. In order to make the most of my forty-minute lesson, I decided to incorporate some of the techniques I had read about into this content free lesson plan.

A Basic Newspaper Article Lesson Introduction -- The Headline Here I show the students the headline and follow up with the five Ws to have the students speculate on the possible content of the article. I also encourage the students to draw on their general world knowledge.

The Story Lead Initially, I re-introduce the five Ws by having the students write down the question words in columns on a piece of paper, then I have the students read the story lead to see if they can determine the answer to the questions of who, what, where, when, and why.

I then follow this up by having the students compare their notes in pairs. Next, I have the students read the underlined parts of the story to get the gist of the story I usually underline these myself before class and then I follow this up by having them go through the five Ws either in pairs or as a whole class activity.

By this stage the students usually have a good sense of who, what, where, when. It is also important to enforce strict time limits in all reading stages one to three minutes, depending on the article. The Remainder of the Story In this section students build on the information they learned from reading the story lead.

Using the same piece of paper, they read the entire article to get more information about how and why.

Journalism | Definition of Journalism by Merriam-Webster

Vocabulary Building When I prepare a newspaper article lesson I also select some of the more complex vocabulary and include it at the end of the article under the heading vocabulary keywords.Most journalists want to break exclusives, but a lot of what science journalists write is neccesarily based on the latest research findings, published for all the world to see in academic journals.

As you know, newspaper writing style tends to have three levels: Headlines, leading phrases, and article content. Each of these has its own style. This lesson focuses on calling students' attention to this type of writing style on a deeper, grammatical level.

Nov 10,  · Writing a feature article can be a highly creative and fun activity, but it does take hard work and planning to write an effective and engaging article. Write a Newspaper Article. How to.

Write a How To Article. How to. Write a Sports Article. How to. Article SummaryX. To write a feature article, start with a sentence paragraph that Views: M. Journal Writing Every Day: Teachers Say It Really Works!

One of the best things about daily journal writing is that it can take so many forms. Teachers can use journal writing to meet specific goals, or the purpose can be wide open.

Subscribe to our newsletter - news of all our latest activities delivered by email once a week. Search Don't forget to use our Search function to find what you are looking for! My first full-time journalism job out of college was at The Maryland Gazette, a sister publication to The Capital in northern Anne Arundel County.

— mary schneidau sullivan, Laurel Leader, "Keeping local news important [Old Town," 6 July