Writing Articles, Stories, and Features

  1. Design the Newspaper Appearance
  2. Write the Articles, Stories, and Features
  3. Guidelines for Newsday Participation
  4. Who makes the Newspaper?

You can use many locally written articles in your newspaper. Therefore, every student should be involved in the days prior to Newsday in writing and producing the various features you expect to include.

  1. Local Stories:
    Students will research and develop interesting stories on your local area. Help them identify "news worthy" stories: history, accomplishment, "famous" people, places, or things. Have them include interviews and "man on the street" opinions and points of view. Also, success stories/tragedies: What can we learn?
  2. State, National, International Stories:
    These are appropriate topics for Newsday, especially if you can get local angles: Effects on local businesses, schools, and so on. Get opinions and reports on major news stories from community leaders, including their views regarding the effects of these stories on your local community and economy.
  3. Stories in Other Newsday Class Locations:
    Look over the list of Newsday participants and make a note of their locations. If during the time of preparation any major national or international news stories break in one of those locations it may be of interest to write a report of that news from the way it is reported in your local news media. Consider interviewing students from the participating school in that area, via telephone or email, to give it a first-person immediacy.
  4. Surveys:
    During the preliminary on-line discussions leading up to Newsday, participants may wish to discuss and identify one or more surveys to conduct at each participating school. For instance, a survey on how many schools recycle their garbage would provide some interesting data from across the network which could then be synthesized and reported by each local team. Students will find it interesting to compare news stories written by different students using the same data. In order to do this someone must prepare and distribute to each Newsday participant an appropriate survey instrument. Surveys will not count toward your maximum number of articles.
  5. Editorials:
    Any issue is fair game for editorial comment, subject to the limits of good taste. Be sensitive to the varying ages and locations of your correspondents. What may be appropriate for your local school may be too hot for other places. It may be best to avoid certain topics.
  6. Interviews:
    See the lesson plan on developing articles based on an interview. You must adapt and change this lesson to conform with the theme of this Newsday.
  7. Other Sections:
    Look at the section on Newspaper Sections. Decide what sections you want to include in your newspaper and have students begin work on producing them (for instance, crossword puzzles, acrostics, or political cartoons.)
  8. Graphics:
    Have your photographers and artists begin creating the supporting artwork.

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