The Media: Exploring Newspapers

The topic for this assignment is “The Media: Exploring Newspapers”. It is important for students to learn the structure and the language of newspapers and how to locate and evaluate the Local, State and International information that is presented.

THE WHOLE OBJECTIVES, ASSESSMENT ETC ARE IN ATTACHMENT

Form of a Recount: Purpose to retell events with the focus on the sequential specific events

Framework:

• Orientation
• Events in time-order
• Evaluation (optional)

Recount Language Features:

• Specific participants
• Linking words to do with time. eg. Later, after, before, etc.
• Action verbs
• Simple past tense

Editing a piece of work:

Punctuation and sentence structure: eg. Capital letters, full stops and commas.

Writing: A newspaper story using the inverted pyramid format.

Grammar: the correct use of tense and specific language appropriate to recounts.

 

2.1 ENGLISH LEARNING OUTCOMES FOR THE UNIT

Students will 

• Identify the sections of a newspaper
• Identify the format of a news article
• Write a newspaper article (News and Sports story)
• Edit a newspaper article
• Interpret and evaluate information
• Understand that language varies according to the context, purpose, and audience.

By the end of the unit students will be able to write a news article using the correct framework for a Recount:

• Orientation
• Events in time-order
• Evaluation (optional)

Students will recognise the language features specific to Recounts:

• Specific participants
• Linking words to do with time. eg. Later, after, before.
• Action verbs

 

Simple past tense

Newspapers contain valuable information about current events happening nationally and all around the world.  Exploring a variety of text in National Newspapers students will discuss and compare the type of language used by reporters and editors, the structure of news and sports stories and the layout of the different sections of a newspaper.  Using a computer the students will create a published version of the front page of a newspaper.  Students will create a name for their newspaper and include a heading for a news story.  Students will provide a picture or photograph and re-write a news story in the form of a recount, about a current news event that has happened in the world during the last month.  They will be required to use specific language terms appropriate to newspapers, concentrating on typical recount grammatical patterns such as action verbs. 

Literature text

• Magazines: K-Zone, D-Mag, Krash, Total Girl, New Idea and That's Life
• Pre-School Books, 1993, The Mouse Family Nursery Rhymes, Brimax Books, Newmarket, England.

Media text

• National Newspapers:
• The Advertiser, The Sunday Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Australian, The Herald Sun, The Western Australian, The Hobart Examiner, The Sydney Morning Herald.
• The Messenger local Newspapers:
• The Standard and The Leader

Everyday text

• Recounts and Reports from Rigby Literacy Collections:
• Rigby Literacy Collections, 2000, Rigby Literacy Collections 5, Upper Primary, Chocolate Bar Arrest: Newspaper Report, Rigby Heinemann, Victoria, p.10
• Rigby Literacy Collections, 2001, Rigby Literacy Collections 6, Upper Primary, Kids’ Big Annual Event: Sports Report, Rigby Heinemann, Victoria, p.6-7.

Students will produce a finished product of a newspaper front page that is aimed to be read by students in the school and their families.  It will incorporate a title of the newspaper and a news story that is a recount of a current news event that has happened during the last month.

The focus of the Assessment is Reading and viewing

Recount format:  Purpose is to retell events

Focus: Sequential specific events Framework:

Orientation, Events in time-order

Language features: Specific participants, linking words to do with time, eg later, after, before; Action verbs and simple past tense