Junior Secondary Writing Term 1 Lesson 1
Content/ Activities Supplementary Resources
Lesson Objectives ( RESEARCH: WHAT IS NEWS?)

Students can/will develop understanding of what makes a successful news article

Students can write a newspaper article with the 5 W’s and 3 C’s
Stage plan overview:
INTRODUCTION: Introduce the this terms course, expectations and assessment rubric. Todays aims and plan of the lesson.
STARTER GAME: CALL MY BLUFF, SS Write down one truth and one lie about themselves and tell the class. SS guess which is the truth
ACTIVITY 1 : Headlines - True or false : 1 True: USA TODAY 30 th Jan 2015, 2 True: Guardian 3rd Aug 2015 3 False: The Onion (USA
Satire) (ridicule intended to expose truth) China People’s Daily reported as true 4 True: ABC 4 th Aug 2015, 5 False NEW YORK DAILY
NEWS November 3, 2014 6 False (Everything on the internet is not true) http://www.thatsfake.com/fake-news-stories-spotting-the-fakes
DISCUSSION: Would you like to work for the news? What does it involve? Would you like to do it?
BBC TRANSCRIPT RESEARCH: BBC What is the news? Writing News Video, MP3, Transcript, encourage students to take notes and quiz them afterwards using the transcript.
ACTIVITY 2: Show a short clip introducing the article.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypT6c4NZ6jk Search: You Tube: Are our kids tough enough? Chinese School Trailer (20secs) READ: W hat it was like being taught by Chinese teachers in the UK. SS read in turn, DISCUSS: What surprised you about this article? What are your thoughts about this education experiment? What are the similarities and differences between HK and Mainland China education?
ACTIVITY 2A :WRITING THE NEWS: Beginning, Middle and End. Breaking parts of the news article.
ACTIVITY 3: WRITE CONCISELY: Pick out what you think are the most important points and then write five short sentences explaining what the story is about with the 5 W ’s and 3 C’s
EXTENSION : True Story: Discussion Political Protest: UK students " Stop the War Coalition" Walked out of class
RUBRIC Example : Criteria how students will be assessed. SS will circle which criteria they have met and reflect on their assignment.
RUBRIC: Peer, self, Teacher Assessment.
FURTHER RESEARCH: Watch Episode 1 YOUTUBE 58:45 Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School. Season 1 Day one of the experiment proves a shock for everyone. Next lesson: discussion
Teacher’s Resources
Teacher’s Resource 1:
BBC transcript ‘What is
News?
Teacher’s Resource 2:
BBC Transcript ‘Writing
News’
Student Activity Sheets
- Student Activity 1:
Headlines
- Student Activity 2:
Writing the news
- Student Activity 3:
Wrire Concisely
Additional Materials
LAPTOP or PLAY AUDIO
MP3
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Junior Secondary Writing 2015 term 1 Page 1 of 10

Student Activity 1 Look at these Headlines. Can you see which are real stories from the fake stories?
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
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(
Teacher Resource 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/27696357 (2MIN 37 SEC)
Hello I’m Huw Edwards and I’m a BBC News presenter.
I love working in news. It’s exciting and it’s a challenge. Every day we have to make sure that we hit our deadlines and get our stories absolutely right every time.
Now it's your chance to do the same and make your own news reports.
News reports can be made in many different ways, but however you decide to produce yours, the most important thing is that you know how to put them onto your school website.
That way we can link to them from the School Report website so that people all over the
UK - and even the world - can see your work.
So, here we are in one of the BBC’s news studios where we make the television news.
When we broadcast the news there’s a team of people in what we call the gallery.
They all work together to make sure the programme runs smoothly.
But there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes before we get to this stage.
And this is where you need to start. So the first question is what is news?
Well, it might sound obvious, but it’s something that is new or current.
And it must mean something to people
. It’s the things that people want to know about or need to know about .
People might want to know the latest entertainment and sport news.
But, you could argue, they need to know about what’s going on in health, education or disasters and conflicts.
On BBC News there is a mixture of different sorts of stories depending on the particular audience.
Keeping these things in mind, there are possible news stories everywhere you look.
Almost everything in your day-to-day life, that interests you or your friends, could be a news story.
A good journalist keeps their eyes and ears open everywhere they go.
Be curious, you never know, you might uncover a truly original piece of journalism.
Your reports can be about things going on in your school or near where you live, that’s local news.
Or about things going on in the UK, that’s national news.
Or even globally and that’s international news.
Before they get ready to report on anything BBC News teams hold regular meetings to decide what they think is news for that day and how to report it accurately.
And you can do the same. So, good luck!
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Teacher Resource 2 http: //www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/19272592
Huw Edwards video – Writing news: transcript (2MIN 21SEC)
Hello. Once a journalist has gathered all the ingredients they need to produce their report it’s time to start writing.
If you’re writing for television or radio, your words are going to be read out loud and you’ll need to write a script which might include audio or video clips.
If you’re writing a text-based online story think about how the words and photos will appear on the screen.
But, before you start writing anything, ask yourself what's the main point of the story?
If you're not sure, tell the story to a friend, what’s the first thing you say to them? This will become the beginning of your report.
The middle of your report contains the best of your interviews.
So review your material, which are the best answers? Which is the most interesting opinion?
Which quotation would balance it?
And you will also need to plan an ending to your report. Think what final thought you want to leave your audience with.
So you already know about the 5 Ws of news-gathering, there are also 3Cs of newswriting: Be CLEAR, CONCISE and CORRECT
Clear: Write as if you were telling the story to one person.
Use simple language that everyone will understand.
And never use a long word where a short one will do.
Concise: Which means short.
Make your report too long and your audience will switch off.
So stick to the key facts rather than overloading the story with information.
Correct: Be sure to get your facts right.
And get your grammar and punctuation right.
It's also about being truthful.
You can't just copy things word for word, you have to be honest and spell out where the information came from.
Truth and accuracy are two of the BBC News values. Check out our master classes for more help.
Good luck with your news reports.
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PLAY SHORT VIDEO CLIP TO INTRODUCE THE
ARTICLE.YOUTUBE: Are our kids tough enough?
Chinese School.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypT6c4NZ6jk
th
These five Chinese teachers taught subjects for a month at Bohunt School in Hampshire
Going to school and finding out you had a substitute teacher is an actual dream.
No seating plan, no excuse needed for not doing homework and most importantly you can basically do whatever you want without risk of detention.
That wasn't the case for one school in Hampshire.
Bohunt School took part in a unique experiment and hired five teachers from China to be
Year 9 teachers for one month.
And to top it off it was all filmed for a BBC Two documentary called:
Are Our Kids Tough Enough?
Fourteen-year-old Rosie Lunskey was one of 50 pupils to take part in the experiment.
She refers to her normal curriculum as "English school" and the experiment as
"Chinese school". "It was definitely a big change," she tells Newsbeat.
"With Chinese school you get up really early and you leave really late.
"I had to get up around 6am to be at school for 7.15am.
"We'd have morning exercise which lasted around 25 minutes. It's sort of aerobics with classical music we were wafting our arms to.
"I knew people in China did things in rows and it was a bit like the
army but I didn't think we'd be doing things like that."
The Chinese teachers taught Mandarin, biology, chemistry, physics, English and PE.
The timetable was the same but there were an extra 20 classmates for Rosie meaning 50 pupils in total.
"The teachers were thrown in the deep end a bit and weren't as strict as we thought they were going to be. Compared to teachers in English schools they were definitely strict.
"When they first came we thought we could muck about. The cameras probably didn't help that because we wanted to muck about even more and we wanted to look cool.
"The biggest change was getting used to the expectations. I started off thinking it would be easy, but it wasn't.
"We all had to get used to the teachers not thinking we were good enough."
Rosie says she was glad when the school went back to normal.
"After the second week I thought I was so done with it but it was only a month so I thought
I could get through it - but it was difficult.
"I didn't like the way science was taught because if we asked for help we wouldn't really get any. We were just spoken at until the lesson was over. We didn't really feel like we were learning anything because it was just on paper in front of us.
"I learnt Chinese people are very focused and it's made me realize education is really important.
"Not that I didn't think that before but it's made me think about it more
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Student Activity 2
Work in pairs.
Highlight story into sections, with two or three sentences in each section of the article.
W hat it was like being taught by Chinese teachers in the UK.
1. A and B, underline the facts and circle the opinions. A fact is something that it true (often who, what, where, when). An opinion is what someone thinks.
2. B, try to put the sections in order. Main Point, Middle: Interviews, Final Thought
A and B, compare B's order with the original story.
A and B, answer these questions:
1. What did you notice about the beginning, middle and end of the report?
2. Where are most of the 5 'W' facts?
3. Where are most of the opinions?
In many genres of writing, the main event occurs in the middle, or at the end, such as a murdermystery novel.
But in news, the first sentence should reveal the key occurrence and often includes the key
'W' facts
.
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Student Activity 2
W
Remember to cover the 5 W's:
And be:
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EXTENSION: TRUE STORIES POLITICAL PROTEST
TEACHER RESOURCE 2
When the British government announced that Allied strikes on Iraq had signaled the beginning of war, many people took to the streets in outrage. A public reaction was expected, but some of the participants took the media by surprise. Rallied by the pressure group ‘Stop The War Coalition’, hundreds of young people abandoned their school classes for the day to appear at the forefront of nationwide protests.
After a day of marches, rallies and canteen occupations coordinated by the Internet and text message, opinion on the protest was divided. Some commentators felt that many young people were exploiting the chance for a day off, while others believed that it was good to see usually apathetic young people showing that they cared about an issue.
Although schools refused to condone the behavior of their pupils, they generally appreciated their strength of feeling against the war, with most of the young protestors escaping punishment for missing lessons. One headteacher commented: ‘This wasn’t truancy to escape school. This was truancy to make a point.
OPENING UP:
Should young people have the right to walk out of school to protest? Why or why not?
What kinds of risks were these protestors taking?
Would you protest, or would you consider protesting on this issue? Why or why not?
Digging Deeper
What would you protest about? Why?
What do you thing are the best ways of getting the government’s attention?
Do you think your government listens to you? Why or why not?
How interested are you in the political process? Are you interested in voting?
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He adds: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
SUPPORTING
DETAILS
5 W’S
SPELLING & GRAMMAR
LEAD SENTENCE
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CATEGORY 4 3 2 1
Headline Article has a headline that captures the reader's attention and accurately describes the content.
Article has a headline that accurately describes the content.
Article has a headline that does not describe the content.
Article is missing headline.
Supporting Details The details in the article are clear and supportive of the topic.
The details in the article are clear but need to be developed more. Some details may not fit in with the topic.
Most details in the article are clear. Article does not focus on the topic well.
The details article are neither clear nor related to the topic.
Who, What, When,
Where & How
Article adequately addresses the 5 W's
(who, what, when, where and how).
The article is missing one of the 5 W's.
The article is missing 2 of The article is missing 3 the 5 W's. or more of the 5 W's.
Lead Sentence
Spelling and
Grammar
Lead sentence grabs the reader's attention and focuses the reader on the topic.
Lead sentence tells most important details.
Lead sentence is not clearly connected to the article.
There is no clear lead sentence in the article.
No spelling or grammar errors.
No more than a couple of spelling or grammar errors.
No more than 3 spelling or grammar errors.
Several spelling or grammar errors.
Student Assessed Grade:
Student Comment:
GRADE:
Teacher Assessed:
Teacher Comment: GRADE:
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