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1. Introduction
   • Summary
   • Audience/Target Population
   • Sequence of Events
   • Learning Objectives
   • Background Information
2. Prewriting Activity
3. Writing Sample
4. Writing Prompts

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This lesson plan was based on a Telelesson originally written by Steve Pinney under a grant from the California State Department of Education.

You may use this lesson to help your students learn how to write their own news articles for Newsday.

Summary

This is an adaptable lesson for student news report writing. A large group lesson is included to emphasize that important information is included in all good news articles.Student teams work together to identify information categories and use local newspapers to practice identifying types. Students learn critical thinking, summarizing, and writing skills.

Students will use the categories of good reporting (who, what, when,where, why and how) to write their own newspaper article. Teams of 3 or 4 students will write the articles for compilation.

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Audience/Target Population

This telelesson can be adapted and used with students in upper elementary and junior high. It could form the basis for lessons at the high school level.

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Sequence of Events

1. Following the directions in the prewriting lesson, the students will examine the attributes of good news reporting (who, what, when, where, why and how).
2. Using the listed attributes from the prewriting lesson, each team of reporters will design questions to elicit an informational response.
3. Each team reporter will use the Prompted Writing Worksheet to help build the first draft of his or her report. This first draft will be printed and critiqued by the other members of the reporting team.
4. Comments by team members will be used to revise the draft and then the article may be printed again for team response.
5. Once revisions are completed the selected articles will be uploaded to the Newsday conference.

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Learning Objectives

1. The student will be able to work in a cooperative group to generate a news article about a school or local event.
2. The student will be able to write a news article draft using the prompts provided with this lesson plan.
3. The student will be able to revise and edit the draft in response to peer review and feedback.
4. The student will be able to send this news article via modem to the Newsday conference.

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Background Information

1. This project is a major writing assignment designed to provide classroom activities to support the writing genre knows as Report of Information.
2. At the 7th grade level it will require about 10 to 12 days for completion.
3. This project can be done within one classroom, between two teachers at the same school, among a number of teachers at many school sites or an entire network of teachers across a large segment of a city or state.
4. This project is appropriate for grades 4 through 12.
5. A collection of news from state and national sources could be used by teachers for other assignments in social studies or math prior to this project.
6. Each team of students should have access to a student or teacher team leader or editor.
7. The prewriting exercise should take about 3 or 4 days and the composing and revision another 3 or 4 days. Collation and publication of the newspaper will require yet another 3 or 4 days.
8. Minimal equipment: one computer per class. More computers will enable the lesson to move more quickly and/or involve more students.
9. Any word processor that can produce ASCII test files can be used for this project.
10. The finished product is a desktop-published version of the same text files with graphics.
11. Evaluation of this project can also be a worthwhile classroom tool, as students can use these writings to evaluate writing style, appropriateness of topic and ability of author to make his or her point known. On-going evaluation of writings could be included in the 0ublication of future newspapers.

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