26 Thursday, May 22, 2014

N
EWSPAPERS are referred
to as the daily miracle
because of the number
of steps and pairs of hands
involved in every issue.
To help determine whether a
topic/issue will be of interest,
test it with these nine factors
that determine newsworthiness.
1. Timeliness events that are
immediate.
2. Impact events that are
likely to affect many people.
3. Prominence events
involving well-known people or
institutions.
4. Proximity events
geographically or emotionally
close to people.
5. Conict strife, antagonism,
warfare, challenges.
6. The Unusual things that
are truly different, bizarre,
strange, wondrous.
7. Currency an idea whose
time has come.
8. Necessity the journalist has
discovered something he or she
feels is necessary to disclose.
9. Audience things that
directly impact the local
community we serve.
Newspaper
activities
Step by step Primary School activities
Secondary School activities
General activities
Find as many blends as possible. All
the th words can be pasted on one
page, sh on another, etc.
In order to write a good story,
a reporter must ask probing
questions. Choose an article from
the newspaper. Read it carefully. Jot
down at least ve questions you think
the reporter who wrote it may have
asked.
Cut out pictures of people and
exchange them. With the set you
have, make up occupations for
the people. Tell why you think the
occupation would t that person.
Read through an article and circle
the nouns in red, the verbs in blue
and the adjectives in green.
Survey your classmates or your
family to nd out which sections
of the newspaper are everyones
favourites. Make a graph of the
results. If you were going to add a
new section to the newspaper, what
would it be? Why? Which section do
you think young people read most
often?
Turn to the editorial pages of your
newspaper. Read the letters to
the editor and categorize them by
topic. Count the number of topics.
Then rank those topics in order of
importance to you, with 1 being the
most important. If there are ve topics
total, youll rank them from 1 to 5.
Choose a newspaper article and
paste onto your paper. Now, circle all
the different punctuation marks used
in the story. Make a list of each of the
punctuation marks used.
Make a list of at least 15 descriptive
words you nd in advertisements.
After compiling your list, write one
or two paragraphs describing
something. Use as many of your
descriptive words as you can.
Dene and list the persuasion
techniques used in advertising,
and then nd an example
of each in your newspaper.
Discuss the ads and see which
ad the class likes most and
which is liked least and tell why.
Read a story about a citizen
group that is working to make
a change in your community.
What do the people in the group
want to change? Why do they
think the change is necessary?
How would the change affect
other groups in the community?
Do you agree or
disagree with the goals of the
group? Why?
Find examples of editorials
written to: inform, interpret,
entertain and inuence. Give
reasons for your classication.
Make a list of all the functions
provided by the newspaper.
How does the newspaper
make an impact on the life of a
community?
Rewrite a newspaper story
from the perspective of
someone else mentioned in the
article. How would s/he have
seen things or explained what
happened?
Imagine newspapers are no
longer available. Consider the
impact newspapers have then
list as many changes in our lives
as possible resulting from the
disappearance of newspapers.
Use the list to predict what
would be likely to happen to
our society if newspapers were
no longer available to report
on current events and interpret
their signicance.
Study the Help Wanted ads to
nd a career for which you hope
to be qualied after graduating
from high school or college.
List the qualications needed
for that job and imagine you
have the others necessary.
Write a brief resume with
your objectives, educational
background, employment
history and hobbies and
interests.
Use rocks and a newspaper to create
poetry. You will need:
Small rocks or pebbles
Newspaper
A pair of scissors
Glue or sticky tape
What to do:
Make sure your pebbles are clean.
Cut out words from the newspaper.
Glue them onto the pebbles or
attach with sticky tape.
Choose a number of words
people, places, things, action words,
etc. Here are some ideas:
he; she; to; love; dog; went; walk;
you; happy; in; to; a; my; your;
orange; bike.
Also include punctuation marks
(comma, exclamation mark, full stop,
question mark.)
Now play a game of poetry pebbles.
Arrange your pebbles to create a
poem.
Use this same technique in other
curriculum areas. For instance, create
maths equations, list historical facts in
order etc.