This Week’s Anton Lesson Plan:
Grammar, punctuation and vocabulary are the building blocks for a medium like newspapers, that are driven by a journalist’s ability to write and get his or her message across. Verb tenses, active and passive voice and the standard of writing in the third person are all tools reporters use when delivering the news to readers.
The following are exercises students can do to get a taste of the role secondary language arts play in your newspaper.
• Imagine you are the main character in the novel you are currently reading. As the character, place a classified ad, write a letter to the editor and write a news story. All should reflect the character’s point of view or bias.
• Choose a news or feature photo and pretend that it’s the year 2500. Try to explain the contents of the picture and what ideas it gives you about the society from the early 2000s.
• Using editorials as your basis, set up a classroom debate to discuss a local issue of interest. Use information from the newspaper to support your point of view.
• Read an editorial and then try to write a one-sentence summary of the author’s point of view.
