Historical Newspaper Article

One of the important things we look for when doing research for papers and assignments is that we are trying to find factual evidence. This means that we must check sources that we feel are reliable, unbiased, and have all the facts. A big thing to remember is that just because something is on the internet, does not make it true. This is why sources like Wikipedia can lead people astray because they can be edited and false information inserted into the text. We need to understand that published, scholarly articles and various texts from experts is a good place to start. Newspaper and other various forms of journalism can be looked at, but you have to also read through the texts sometimes to make sure that their facts and opinions line up with the truth. 

You will create a newspaper article about a historical event, place, or person. In the article you will include true facts, while also weaving in false information in order to throw off your readers. The point of this exercise it to help train you to spot facts and be able to discern whether or not they are true or false. This will not only help to improve your research skills, but it will also give you a means to create judgement when dealing with articles and what to use for your papers. A large part of your high school and college careers will be spent doing extra research. What this will also help you do is it will develop creativity and show me that you are capable to thinking outside the box and increase your ablity to write a story. 

• Start by picking a historical person, place, or event that you wish to write on. 
• Your first step will be creating a title for your newspaper article. 
• Make sure that your title is approved by your instructor. 
• Follow the template on the website:http://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/
• You will write a minimum of 4 paragraphs for this assignment. 
• For each paragraph that you write, you will include both a fact, and a lie about the historical person, place, or event. 
• Make sure that your grammar and sentence structures are desirable. Remember that your work should be professional. 
• Have fun with this assignment. I will give you all a hard copy of a sample article for you to get a better idea of the assignment.
• If you have any questions or need ideas, please come and see me. 
• This assignment will take us approximately 3 days to complete.
• Day One: Article Headline Creation and Research on the Topic
• Day Two: Writing the Article
• Day Three: Going over Articles in Class

This assignement will encourage the creative process of the students, and through review of each article that the students write, we will be able to pick out the facts and the fabrications throughout the articles. This should be a fun exercise that will allow students to write a paper and create something that can be funny or serious. We want to develop good research habits in our students, and this is a simple exercise that will hopefully give them an eye for sorting through sources, which we know is extremely important. At the conclusion of the article creation and review, students should have a better understanding for thurough research and the ability to do some fact checking on their own in order to add information to their papers in the future. This exercise should not only help them improve researching skills and creativity, but it should also give them the ability to seek out bias in news articles and recognize when information may be falsified. 

Newspaper Generator:http://newspaper.jaguarpaw.co.uk/

Satire Articles for ideas:http://www.theonion.com/

Research Tips:http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/advice-for-students-10-steps-toward-better-research.html

Research Tips:http://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/15-steps

Galileo Articles: https://www.galileo.usg.edu/scholar/gcsu/search/

ADDIE Instructional Design Process for assignment: 

Analyze:

• Your goal for this assignment should be to encourage the students to create an article that they can find enough research on to include both facts and fabrications. 
• Students should be able to evaluate in the process of writing this article what is fact and what is not which will help them learn to fact check behind authors when including information in their own research. 
• Students should develop an entertaining news article and let their creativity guide them through the assignment as much as the research on their topic does. 

For learners:

• Make sure that your students are able to handle this assignment. I would suggest that this assignment be used for high school aged students in either an english or history course. 
• Make sure they are knowledgable of their topic. Try to encourage them to gravitate towards a topic they are familiar with. Whether that be sports, people, or an event. Just as long as it holds some historical significance. 
• Make notes on what the students struggled with/exceled at throughout this process.

Design:

• Students will have a choice about the articles that they want to create and include in the articles. 
• Objectives for the process are clearly stated in the process section. They will chose an article headline, have it approved, and begin researching and writing the news article. We will then review the articles as a class on the 3rd day.
• By reviewing the articles as a class, students will have to put in some time to make sure that they are acceptable. This will in a way get them to try a little harder on the assignment as everyone in the class will see them. 
• Students will demonstrate research skills, creativity, correct grammar, and their ability to meet deadlines and follow instruction. 
• We cannot determine that the students know that they are doing correct work in this process, so helping them with their questions and meeting with each student through the process will go a long way to show them that you are there to help and encourage them towards all of the goals within this assignment.
• Keep the students motivated. By showing them an article that you have created, they will see how easy and enjoyable the assignment can be. We not only have to be instructive, but challenge them to create their own content. 
• Identify what students are struggling with and go over that as an entire class if necessary. This will help to reach out to individuals who may not ask for help, or are unaware that they will struggle with that portion when they get to it. 

Develop:

• This project will be better accomplished in a computer lab or the media center as it will require the students to do research in order to gain facts about the topic. 
• By now, your students should know that you expect good work from them. This is an assignment that will challenge them and bring out their creative side. Obviously, some articles will be more articulate than others, but by ensuring that they go through a process with this that they will be able to create something that is theirs and because their name is on it, they should put more effort into it especially since others will see their works. 
• Allow students to work on this assignment in a group if you want. On their individual articles, but hold others accountable and help them with ideas. By allowing students to pick their own topics they wish to write about, this should encourage them to create content based on something that they are familiar with. That may not necessarily be the case, but they will feel more comfortable if they have some prior knowledge of the history of the topic that they are writing about. This assignment may make some students uncomfortable if they feel that their writing skills are not that great, but by sticking to the research they should be able to create meaningful content. 
• Your learning objectives in this should be just as much for you as an instructor as it is for them. Throughout the development process of this, make sure that you are recording what works, where there are struggles, and ways that you can improve this process. Can the assignment be completed reaslistically in the time that you have assigned for the lesson? Are students capable of doing research on their own? Ask yourself these questions as you go through the process. 

Implement: 

• Stop the lesson throughout the process and ask students if they are grasping the information and instruction? If multiple students are struggling with the same thing, again make sure that you bring that to the classes attention as a whole in order to better use your time instead of answering individuals who are struggling with the same thing. 
• Take breaks throughout the process and ask them to either simply write at that time, or do more research. 
• You can include more into the rubric if you feel that you want them to accomplish more with the assignment. Mold this to make it yours. Implementing this lesson hits on several levels, so it may or may not come out the way that you want to, but if it improves one of the skills that you feel it should in the students then it should be seen as a success. 
• Clearly we cannot assume what will work and will not without trying the assignment. You know your students, so you be the judge on if this is something that works or does not. 

Evaluate: 

• Was the assignment a success? Do you feel that the students achieved a substantial increase in their skills involving research, creativity, or all of the above? 
• Make sure that you ask them about the assignment if it is the first time doing it. You want their input to see if they enjoyed it or not. This is important because maybe it is something that you would want to try for older groups or if you need to change some of the wording in the rubric depending on the class. 
• One suggestion for this process would be that depending on the grade level and type of class, you would want to have only one person, place, or event that you want them to work on in order to encourage them to all discuss the same topic and give students the chance to bounce ideas off of each other. 
• Are what they doing relevant to the curriculum?