Introduction
This unit is to teach you as help you become better writers. You will learn the ins and outs of writing newspapers and you will have several chances at writing your own news story. First, lets learn about it!
Task
Quick write:
Get your Ipad and wait for the signal. You will have 5 minutes to answer this question.
"Someone stole the gym teacher’s whistle. It’s your job to find out what happened. What questions do you need to ask? Who do you need to ask? "
Process
As a class, we will now have a discussion about what goes into an interview.
- Preparing
- asking
- repeating
- follow-up questions
- open-ended versus closed questions
Next, you will click on this link and read about how to interview properly. Watch the video on Katie Couric who is a celebrity interviewer. Take a look at some of the tips below the video and write on your blog a summary and reflection of what you must do when interviewing someone for a news story.
Read and watch the following website/video.
Evaluation
This assignment is designed to improve your listening skills during an interview. You need to take good accurate notes about what the person tells you in order to write a fair and accurate story of what happened.
You will receive a piece of paper that explains your character (the role you are representing). On that paper will be a fake name and a fake scenario of a news event that may have occurred over the summer. You need to be creative and “become” that person. Someone will be sent to interview you about this news event that you were a part of.
You will also receive a piece of paper explaining people you will need to seek out to interview for this story. You need to come up with interview questions to make sure you obtain all of the facts to be able to write an accurate news story.
Your news story needs to be about 200 words long and must include all the important facts. You must include quotes obtained from at least two sources.
Things I will be looking for:
- Accurate facts – including spelling of names, towns, etc.
- Proper use of direct and indirect quotes (punctuation)
- Short, concise wording of sentences
- Proper referencing of names throughout the article
- Objectivity
- Use of third person
*YOU MAY NOT show the person who is interviewing you your slip of paper. They need to obtain all facts through interviewing. If you are caught, you will receive a zero for the assignment.
- Friday – create your character, Write your interview questions
- Monday – Receive your character, interview people to write your news story
- Tuesday – transcribe your notes
- Wednesday – Finish any interview questions
Conclusion
We are going to make a class newspaper! You will write your own news article.
The article needs to be edited by a classmate, who signs it, then handed in for teacher editing, handed back for revision and handed in.
Each article must have the following: Headline (6 words or less)
By line
5 W and H
2 Quotations
You will hand in your assignment on google classroom by: _____________ (not yet determined)
***If you finish early, you can create an editorial board that will begin to brainstorm ideas about title of newspaper and other design elements.
Credits