1.

9 Creating a newsletter

This session takes students through the various stages involved in mastering and
applying the techniques needed to create attractive-looking documents.

Learning aims
 Create and open documents with information from different sources.
 Import, place and manipulate a variety of information from a variety of sources.
 Format the page layout: size, orientation, margins, columns, headers, footers, text alignment.

Differentiated learning outcomes Resources

• All students must be able to create and open  Student’s Book: pages 43−47
documents with information from different sources;  Files:
change page size, orientation, header and footers; NewsletterText.rtf
import images. InkjetPrinter.jpg
• Most students should create and open documents with Joystick.jpg
information from different sources; change all aspects Keyboard.jpg
of a page layout; import images. LCDMonitor.jpg
• Some students could create and open documents from Mouse.jpg
any source; change all aspects of a page layout; Scanner.jpg
import and place an image with text wrapping. WS1_9a.docx

Starter suggestions
Have a look back at the document created in Session 1.8. If necessary, have copies
available. Discuss what is not attractive about it, for example: no images; text
format/alignment is boring. Get suggestions about how this could be improved.

Main lesson activities

Teacher advice: Ensure that you have available the image files: Keyboard.jpg,
Mouse.jpg, Scanner.jpg, Joystick.jpg, LCDMonitor.jpg, InkjetPrinter.jpg, and the
text document NewsletterText.rtf from the Student’s Book digital download.

Ensure that each student has the text to work with as they start Activity 1 (Student’s
Book, page 43).
Student task: Use Activity 2 to play around with adjusting the gap between the
columns as well. It doesn’t matter what happens in this activity or how the text gets
messed up because you have the saved version from Activity 1.
Teacher advice: Make sure that at the start of Activity 3 students do have a copy
matching that at the end of Activity 1. Have a copy on hand.
It is important that students understand the concept of cropping as opposed to
squashing. Aspect ratio is vitally important and students need to understand it fully,
because at a number of points in the practical tests (word processing and webpage
creation), students will be asked to preserve aspect ratio after resizing.

Point out the Tip on page 46 of the Student’s Book that mentions the very useful
shortcut Ctrl+Z – ask students to note this down in their ICT dictionary.

Cambridge IGCSE™ ICT Teacher’s Guide © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022

 Student task: Text wrapping can create a number of interesting results so allow
students to play around to see them. The layout illustrated after Activity 5 (Student’s
Book, page 47) is only a suggestion. It does not matter where images are placed, just
that the document looks attractive.
Student task: Using the material they saved from WS1_8a, students should now
create a poster as outlined in WS1_9a.

Give extra support by taking students through the process of column creation and
image manipulation step by step.
Give extra challenge by asking students to create
the newsletter in three columns so that it can be
folded into thirds, as in this diagram:

Or, ask students to create the two-column

version in portrait orientation.

Plenary suggestions
Ask students to list all the steps they took to transform the text that they had at the
start of the session to the completed document.
• How many of these steps alter the actual layout?
• How many are about appearance only?
• What other suggestions do they have for making the document more attractive?

Cambridge IGCSE™ ICT Teacher’s Guide © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022