Practice Makes Perfect: An Exercise in News

Overview and Rationale:

To begin understanding how to write a news article, students must be able to recognize
elements of a good story and then strengthen their writing skills by shadow writing an article
in a similar voice. These activities will increase in difficulty as the semester progresses. This
exercise could become a staple of the classroom. As it does, students will progress into
bringing their information and working with it to create a news story that reflects good
writing.

Goals for Understanding

 Essential Questions:
 What elements make a news story
 What elements are present in the sample story
 What is the organizational style of the sample story
 Critical Engagement Questions
 How do professional writers put together news stories
 Oregon standards of “analysis of writing” apply (see Standards)
Resources/Materials
 Overhead projector
 Three copies of different news stories
 Worksheet for partner work (related article)
 List of newspaper facts for organization activity (related article)
Overview and Timelines
This lesson will take place over the course of 2 days
Activity 1 – (20 minutes)
 Teacher will briefly review news terms and then will put an overhead of a typical well-written
news story on the overhead and go through the story and show students the following
elements that have been previously discussed:
 Lead
 Nut graph
 Quotes
 Transitions
 Style/Grammar
 Quality

Activity 2 – (30 minutes)

 Teacher will give students a copy of a newspaper article that would have interest to the
students to read as partners and discuss. Students will use a highlighter to identify each
element of the story, noting placement of elements.
 Students will then share their ideas with the group.
 Teacher will put the news story on the overhead and using the groups input identify the
elements.

Activity 3 – (20 minutes)

 Teacher will give handout to students with a variety of information, and with that
information write a news story incorporating the elements discussed and practiced.