Read All About It!
Teacher Anne Girven
| YEAR
|
LEVEL
|
DURATION
|
| 5-6
|
3
|
4 weeks
|
| Achievement Objective Being Assessed
|
Learning Outcomes
|
| Transactional Writing
|
Write factual accounts, expressing personal viewpoints in a range of authentic concepts, sequencing ideas logically to present a newspaper.
|
| Presenting
|
Use verbal and visual features to communicate information. Use layout effectively to present a class newspaper.
|
| Processes
|
| Processing Information
|
View and use newspapers to organize and present information using appropriate technology.
|
| Supporting Achievement Objective
|
Learning Outcomes
|
| Interpersonal Listening
|
Listen to and interact with others in group or class discussion.
|
| Close Reading
|
Discuss language meanings and ideas in newspaper articles, general interest stories and opinion-based writing. Relate to personal experiences and other texts.
|
Teacher background reading
Select and adapt these learning activities to best meet the needs of your students, and to fit the time available:
Preparation
Order a class set of newspapers for the duration of the unit. Spend the first ten minutes of each session reading and discussing what is in the newspaper.
and/or
Spend the first 10 minutes of each session, reading a selection of Online Newspapers
.
Useful Tips
Teach students how to handle the paper and how to fold it carefully at the end of a session. For many it will be the first time they have had one in their hands. Get them to write their name on their newspaper.
Staple (about 4) down the spine of the whole newspaper or each section allowing the newspaper or sections to open up like a book.
Learning task 1
Learning task 2
Assessment
Assessment Task
See learning task 2
Resources
Electronic
Print
-
Using the newspaper
A teacher's resource module for the written and oral language strand of the English Curriculum. Produced by Newspapers in Education
.
-
Publishing your own newspaper
A practical guide for publishing newspapers in the classroom. Produced by Newspapers in Education.
-
Layout and Design
This module has been designed as a guide for students publishing their own newspaper. Produced by Newspapers in Education.
Follow up
- Post the newspaper on to the school website, or edit it, to put some features on to the website.
- Continue to produce a newspaper each term.
- Subscribe to NIE Current Events programmes.
- Co-ordinate your NIE current events programmes with your newspaper unit.
- Produce an end-of-year school magazine.
Additional learning activities
- Compare magazines and newspapers. What are the differences/similarities? Have a look at magazines that are targeted at students' own age group. How are they different/similar to magazines targeted for an older audience?
- Publish a brief 'magazine' that will target a particular activity, eg. hobbies, music.
- Analyse the photos printed in newspapers - how are they cropped, what is the intended message the newspapers want to give (eg a child crying rather than smiling in a 'home alone' case). Refer Exploring Language: Image Selection, Cropping, and Captioning: a Case Study
- Make a television news hour using a video recorder.
