Harris Academy South Norwood
Short Term Planning Template: Weekly Overview (2-4 lessons)
Subject Area: English and Media Half Term: Summer 1 Week Beginning: One
Differentiation Weekly Learning Objectives
All To be able to:
• Describe what is meant by the term ‘media’
To begin to understand:
• The difference between media texts
• How tabloids and broadsheets are different
• That language can create certain feelings
Most To recognise:
• The different purposes of a media text
To explore:
• How the same news story can be presented in a variety of
ways
• How tabloids and broadsheets present information
To be able to explain:
• How emotive language can influence a reader
Some To be able to analyse:
• The influence of the media on the public
• The language used in tabloids and broadsheets
To evaluate:
• Our own interpretations of a news story
• The use of emotive language in print media
Class: Seven Unit Title: Read All About It – Print Media
Weekly Learning Outcomes
Students will:
• Understand what is meant by the term ‘media’ and the
different forms that it entails. Create a brainstorm.
• Recognise a variety of print media and begin to recognise
their features.
• Analyse a news story and describe how it presented in
different newspapers. (S & L as well as written
communication)
Students will:
• Group media types according to ‘information’ and
‘entertainment’.
• Sketch a range of media forms and comment on their layout
features.
• Discuss and categorize headlines in terms of whether they are
factual, dramatic or personal.
• Evaluate whether the media deals with tragedy sympathetically.
Students will:
• Debate whether they trust or learn more from one type of media than
another.
• Annotate an article and highlight emotive language examples.
They will create alternatives that do not have connotations.

Starter
Lesson 1
What is the Media?
Brainstorm with students what
they understand by the term
‘media’. Share responses
Show PowerPoint ‘What is the
media’? (see resource folder)
Students to explain, for each
example, how they use them.
In pairs, students to group them
according to their main purpose,
for example, ‘entertain’, ‘inform’,
Lesson 2
Types of Newspapers: Tabloid
and broadsheets
Ask students whether they can
give examples of tabloids and
broadsheets
(see resource folder)
Note down list in workbook.
Read through slides on
PowerPoint
(see resource folder)
Suggested Learning and Teaching Ideas
Development Plenary Assessment
1. Explain that the media has become a gigantic industry during the last fifty Do you believe or trust more Self
years, and that one hundred years ago newspapers were the only form of of what you learn from one
information about what was happening locally and globally. kind of media than from
another?
Exploring Media Texts
Students to complete media
2. Show students three mystery texts. table (see resource folder)
Which is a newspaper article, magazine article and leaflet? and share ideas with a
(see resource folder ‘What is the media?’ PowerPoint) partner.
3. Explain that media texts like these use layout features to communicate.
Students draw three quick sketches, using no words, to show what the
format of each text type would look like.
Differentiation: place images of three text types on board to assist with
sketches (see resource folder ‘What is the media?’ PowerPoint).
4. Based on their three sketches, students to write down what they think the
essential ingredients that make the layout of the three text types different:
a) The essential layout ingredients of a newspaper page are …
b) The essential layout ingredients of a magazine page are …
c) The essential layout ingredients of a leaflet are …
Share student responses.
Features of tabloid and broadsheet Students to write paragraph Peer
about the differences
1. Students to draw table into their books between tabloid and
(see resource folder: tabloid and broadsheet PowerPoint) broadsheet news stories.
Analysis of news stories
2. Students to look at ‘School Riot’ news reports
(see resource folder)
- In groups, students look at different story.
- Complete written analysis.
- Share findings.
Lesson 3
What’s in a headline?
Explain that:
Newspaper reports often use
language that is emotive rather
than factual and neutral.
This emotive language affects the
way we feel about people and
things in the reports.
Students to read the headlines
reporting on the death of Gordon
Brown’s first child
(see resource folder)
Students to rank the headline
according to sympathy, sensitivity
and information conveyed. Which
headline does all of these things?
Share ideas –
• How factual is the
headline?
• How personal is the
headline?
• How dramatic is the
headline?
Lesson 4
Looking at Language
Students to read two reports
published on the same day in 1990 and dignified.
(see resource folder).
They are about a political protest in
South Africa. At that time Black
South Africans didn't want other
countries' teams to come to South
Africa because Blacks were not
allowed to play in South African
teams. An English cricket team
Emotive language
Re-read The Star's report
Explain the following: about the school 'riot'. The
report uses a lot of emotive
If something is emotive it makes people emotional. If you have just had your new language. For example, it
bike stolen then your friends might avoid boasting about their bikes: bikes are an uses "mob" instead of crowd
emotive subject for you at the moment. or group; "refused" instead of
declined or decided not.
Newspapers often choose emotive language (words) to get their readers to react
emotionally to a story. If you call an event a 'riot' rather than a 'disturbance' you What quieter, less emotive
are much more likely to get your readers excited. words could the report have
used instead of "terrified"
(paragraph 4); "frantic"
1. Students to complete emotive language task (see resource folder) (paragraph 5)?
2. Share findings.
How do we feel about:
the "youngsters” and the
teachers who "refused to do
dinner duties"?
Explain how the writer's
choice of words makes us
feel these things about the
pupils and the teachers.
You will find that one of the two reports is far more dramatic than the other and How do the two papers make
uses a lot of emotive language. You will also find that the way that Mike Gatting us feel about Mike Gatting
and the black demonstrators are written about encourages us to feel certain and about the
things about them. For example, one of the reports makes Mike Gatting sound demonstrators?
panicky and even a coward. The other report makes Gatting sound more cool
One report is from The Independent; the other is from The Star.
1. Whole class – read both reports.
2. While reading, students to highlight examples of emotive language.
3. Next to each word students write two alternative words that mean almost
the same but are less emotive. Set ideas in a chart - see the example
visited South Africa and many below.
Blacks demonstrated angrily
against it. A man called Mike
Gatting was the English captain.
The reports are about what
happened at one demonstration. 4.
EMOTIVE LESS EMOTIVE NEUTRAL
MOB GANG CROWD
RACED RAN HURRIED
Students to write summary about the articles in The Independent and
the one in The Star, explaining how each uses language.

Resources Homework
LESSON 1 PowerPoint What is the media The History of Media research
HANDOUT LESSON 1 PLENARY Who do you trust Types of stories conventions
LESSON 2 PowerPoint Tabloid and broadsheet
HANDOUT Comparing news articles School Riot
HANDOUT Emotive Language
HOMEWORK The History of Media research
HOMEWORK Types of news stories
PowerPoint Features of a newspaper

Cross Curricular Checklist (in relation to 6 week overview)

Lit  Num  ICT  Ent/WRL  PHSEE  Citizenship  VAK 