Students’ age range: 14-16
Main subject: Language arts and literature
Topic: News reporter on current events
Description: Research. With their partner, students carry out a brief research or investigation in the local news to seek possible news regarding the recent events or developments in their school, community, or country. Students discuss among themselves the relevance and validity of the news found. Then, they select one news article each to develop and write about. Teacher counsels on their choices.
Brainstorm. Students think about all the details each might want to include in their story. To aid in classifying the information, students may use the following categories to organize their ideas into paragraphs:
- Introduce the selected event by listing what has happened regarding it and around it; what people think about the event; what you think about it.
- Describe the background and narrate how things were before the event; what made the event come to happen.
- Analyze the significance of the event by narrating why it is relevant or important; how it is helping the community / school / country; what impact it may have in the future of the community / school / country.
Teacher aids in the management of time and keeping them on task.
Outline. Students organize their ideas into an outline using the following guidelines:
- Write a Thesis Statement that supports the background information and the significance of the event to the community….
- Write a Topic Sentence for each of the two body paragraphs: I- background of the event, and II- significance of the event.
- Write at least three supportive information sentences for each body paragraph.
Students share their outlines and do peer response. Discussion of their opinions and constructive criticism is encouraged. Teacher aids with difficulties that arise in their writing and thinking.
Draft. Using the present perfect tense to introduce the topic and complementing with other tenses where appropriate, students write a first draft of their story by following the revised outline.
Editing. Once completed the first draft, students lay it aside for some time and/or make themselves available to be peers to others. With fresh eyes, they read it again and check their writing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes, which they mark. Having read their draft, students write a clean copy.
Peer Response. Working with the partner, students help each other decide how to fix the mistakes found when editing and how to improve the content of the narrated event.
Draft as much as needed. Repeat the process as many times as you consider is needed, each time using peer response.
Final Draft or Publishing. Write the final copy once you consider your writing is to your satisfaction and your peer liking.