Writing a newspaper

Welcome to this amazing new learning adventure that presents some language contents to learn and practise the English language with a wide range of  ICT resources.. 

In this project, you are going to inform about what happens around your school by creating, publishing and sharing your own news stories in an online newspaper.

Bykst. Noticias (CC0)

Along with this, you will work on vocabulary activities based on newspaper parts and sections, opinion adjectives, the environment and other current issues. Here, you will also have the chance to revise and practise several grammar aspects such as present and past tenses, Will future and interrogative sentences. Throughout the project, you will find several tasks with which you can develop your communicative skills.

All these contents will help you in the design and production of your online newspaper. Challenging, isn't it?

Let's get started!

Open Educational Resource by EDIA Project - Cedec.

English. Compulsory Secondary Education.

Author: María José Alcaina Fort.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

About the project

Our project. General information

The final challenge of this project is to edit and promote a digital newspaper. But before that, you need to surf different websites and overcome several missions that will help you gain knowledge and acquire strategies.

Collaborative work is highlighted in this project, which means you will mainly acquire knowledge by working in pairs or small groups. Likewise, you will also work individually on interactive activities to which you will access by clicking on the website links provided.

Do not forget that your teacher can help you whenever necessary on your way towards the big final challenge.

Stokpic. Ordenador portátil (CC0)

 It is advisable that you read some general information about this resource before you start working so that you learn about the objectives that you need to achieve and the tools and applications with which you will fulfill your tasks or missions. You will also know about some aspects on your work evaluation and how to use Your learning diary. Click on the titles below for detailed information.

Your Work

The missions that you will have done at the end of this project are:

The presentation of different sections and parts of a newspaper.

A video report on events happening at your school.

A news story about a person or fact in history.

The design and presentation of a flyer on an International day at your school.

The final challenge which consists of the design and production of your own digital newspaper

Tools and Apps

To create, design and edit your work, you will be able to use the following apps, among others.

Cacoo, an online tool with which you will create word maps to work on key vocabulary.

Canva, which will enable you to design and create your own charts and posters.

StoryboardThat. You will use this online app to prepare the drafts for your presentations. 

Google Slides, to create slide presentations.

Online voice recorder, A voice based learning tool.

Wevideo, A tool with which you will create and edit videos.

ARTHR,   Paper.li Crayon Zinepal: suitable tools to create a digital newspaper.

Promoting your work

Notice that you will be performing several missions and we are sure that, by the end of this resource, you will be proud of your great work, which you can prepare, publish or share with the help of the online tools and apps listed below.

To publish, you will use Weebly site. An email account is required to create your own site where you will be posting all your missions. Within this site, you will create a blog entitled 'Your learning diary' in which you will be including relevant information concerning your learning process.

To share your work with other people, you will use Pinterest, a digital board where you can publish your tasks and share them with your classmates.

Throughout the project, your teacher may award you with a badge from Open Badges in case of excellent performance. 

Assessment

Your progress on this project will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Teacher's evaluation: your teacher will use the assessment rubrics to evaluate your work on the missions and the final challenge. 

'Rubric for assessing a presentation' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

''Rubric for assessing a questionnaire' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

''Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing an informative text'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing a timeline' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing a digital poster' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

'Rubric for assessing your digital site'. (download in editable odt format, download in pdf). This refers to your Weebly site where you will publish all your work of this and other projects.

Peer evaluation: you will assess other partners by creating your own assessment sheet with the items that you consider as appropriate or by using the assessment rubrics listed above. 

You will self-evaluate the final outcome using the document 'Rubric to assess the project: Writing a newspaper'  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf),  This rubric brings together the main criteria for assessing your missions and challenge.

Teacher's observation in class based on your degree of participation in the project and how well you perform all the missions.

As you can see, you will get entirely involved in this project by acquiring, creating and sharing contents as well as assessing both, your own and your classmates' learning process.

Learning Diary

You will learn more meaningfully if you reflect on your work progress throughout this project. In your Weebly site, you will create a blog entitled "Writing a newspaper" which will be Your Learning Diary. Here, you will answer several questions which will help you become aware of your efficient work and of the difficulties that you find in each mission and in the final challenge.

Final remarks

Your work on this resource will help you develop your linguistic competence as you are presented some language aspects that you can practise in several reading, listening, writing and speaking activities. Here, you also have the chance to develop your autonomy in your learning process and to work in a collaborative way with your classmates. Besides, you can broaden your digital competence with the online tools and apps suggested to carry out your work.

Learning diary

After reading the general information about this project, we encourage you to reflect on the work that you are going to do. It is time to start creating your Learning Diary. It will help you reflect on what you are learning and, most important, what the best way of learning is.

Make a first post on your blog/diary  entitled 'About the project' and type/write your answers for the questions in Writing the post. 

Remember that if you use a Weebly website, you have the possibility to create a blog which you will entitle 'Becoming a cinema director'. This is going to be your Learning Diary.

Another option is to use a personal notebook where you can write down your reflections on your own learning process.

Feedback

In your post 'About the project',  type/write your answers for the questions below.

Which is the final product?

How are we going to get organized in the classroom?

What resources am I going to use and create?

What do I have to achieve to overcome the mission?

From my point of view, what aspects or tasks are the most important to be developed in this project? What do I expect to learn throughout this work project?

What doubts do I still have?

Is it clear for me how to access and manage the site where I will be publishing all my work based on this and other projects?

Do not forget it would be great if you shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates. You will have 10 or 15 minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Getting informed

It's in the news

Let us start by having a look at several newspapers. Your objective in this mission consists of presenting a brand-new newspaper containing several parts and sections.

geralt. News (CC0)

At the end of this section, you will have...

Analized and compared different newspapers.

Learnt about the parts and sections in a newspaper.

Read and listened to several news.

Presented the launch of a new newspaper.

Leading activities: newspaper contents

The activities presented below will help you acquire key vocabulary and useful language to perform successfully your first mission within this project. They are your first steps towards the final challenge of this project: the creation and design of an online newspaper.

Activity 1: Checking the papers

Let us start by having a look at several papers. Does your school have a newspaper? If so, can you identify the sections and types of news that it contains? You can also enter The kpcnotebook.scholastic.com website and choose two or three online papers. Check the parts that each one contains.

You can get some useful information about newspapers and their main sections and parts on the Slide share presentation entitled Parts of a newspaper and on the Parts of a newspaper video.

With a classmate, comment on the following questions.

What types of news are published on the front page?

Read several headlines. Do you think they are bad or good news

What "soft news'' can you read in the newspapers?

In which section can you check the time for a film you want to watch tomorrow?

Individually, take the quiz on the TV411.org page. 

Activity 2: Listen and speak (about papers)

Listen & Speak

Let's see if you can identify different types of news. Enter the News in Levels website, read and listen to several news. With your class group, suggest the newspaper sections in which you can include each news story.

Sign in at Canva and create a chart where you will include five parts or sections of a newspaper. Include a picture to illustrate each part  Share your chart with your classmates on  Pinterest. and publish it on a page that you will entitle 'My digital Resources' in your Weebly site.

Activity 3: One step forward

Individually, practise more newspaper-related vocabulary with the Parts of a Newspaper Quiz at the ProProfs website. It is important that you know the different parts and sections of a newspaper because you are going to use some of them in the mission below.

Extra resources

Reading news stories is a good way to improve your English. We suggest that you visit web sites such as  Breaking News English site to broaden your English level.

Cultural notes: In the United Kingdom, there is a type of "yellow journalism" which is published in what is known as Tabloids. Enter the Quora site to find out about the difference between a tabloid and a newspaper.

A newsy launch

Let us see if you are able to perform successfully the mission consisting of playing the role of a group of moguls presenting a newspaper. We encourage you to use the vocabulary you have learnt in the previous section and the grammar structures included in the instructions below.

kaboompics. Periódico (CC0)

Your work

Get together in groups of four students.

Show the students in your group the poster you have created in the previous section and agree on the sections for the new newspaper you all are about to launch.

Agree on the newspaper's name. Let the name sound attractive.

It is a good idea that you include a section based on local news in which you can refer to facts and stories that happen at your school or where you live.

Create a presentation with the sections on which you have agreed. Enter the News in Levels website and select adequate news as examples of news for each section of your newspaper.

Distribute the information among the members in your group and write a draft.

Practise as much as you can before your presentation.

On a fixed day, you will present your slideshow to let your classmates know about the parts and contents of your newspaper.

Work Evaluation

Your individual and group work will be assessed by your teacher taking into consideration the 'Rubric for assessing a presentation' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf). You will also have the chance to evaluate your classmates' work using the same rubric or other criteria that you and your teacher consider as appropriate for this mission.

Work Promotion

Publish your slideshow (copy and paste the URL link) on the page entitled 'My Digital Resources'  in your Weebly site. You can share the file with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany your post with an image.

Tips and resources

Do not forget to insert an image to illustrate each section. There are several banks of images online where you can find nice pictures (with a Creative Common licence) for your newspaper. 

To prepare your presentation, use adequate vocabulary. Use some of the adjectives that are included in the Learn English with Africa website. Include useful language to introduce the contents of your paper: Use present simple structures such as It has got, There are (five) sections, You can read some...Practise these expressions at the Woodward English website and at the Englisch Hilfen site.

The announcement of your brand-new newspaper also lends itself to use future simple sentences such as Our newspaper will contain... We will include...). You can learn and practise these forms on the To Learn English Site.

Important and powerful people in a particular activity or industry.

Learning diary

We hope you finished this first mission successfully.

Make a new post on your blog/diary with the title 'Getting informed' and type/write your answers.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering the following questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

A reporter's life

After the news

In this mission, you and your classmates are going to play the role of reporters by starting your news search. By working in groups, you´ll make video interviews and a public presentation of the video.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Learnt about some kid reporters' fact files.

Learnt about how to gather information to write a news story.

Practised open questions.

Created and presented a video report.

Geralt. Signo de Interrogación (CC0)

Previous activities: "Learning about reporters"

Can you imagine what a reporter's life is like? Bet you guess it is not boring at all! Here, you will have the opportunity to become a reporter and go on the hunt for relevant information for your own news story.

Activity 1: Inquisitive teenagers

For a start, enter the Time for Kids site and find out information about some inquisitive teenagers who enjoy reporting news. Tell a classmate about which reporter you are more similar to.  What interests/likes have you got in common?

These reporters refer to famous people they would like to interview. What about you? What famous person would you like to interview? What type of questions can you ask this person?

Activity 2: Ws an H

Interviewing people is a way to collect information for writing a news story. It is important that reporters have their questions ready to get relevant information from the people they interview.

When planning your interview, consider the 5 Ws and H in Journalism. This principle can help you obtain important information on a fact or event on which, later, you will write down your news story. Enter the englisch-hilfen.de webpage and practise questions in past and present tenses.

At the TotalEnglish.com website, you can do a lot of activities related to interrogative sentences.

Activity 3: A step forward

Think of six questions that you want to ask a classmate, get them ready and record them on the online tool online voice recorder. On the BBC School Report page, you can read and listen to an interview with a Syrian student, which you  can use as a model.

Invite your classmate to your interview and let him/her record their answers.

Copy the url link to your interview and paste it on the page entitled "My digital resources" of your Weebly site.

It is important that you ask questions properly because they are an important part in the mission presented below.

Extra resources

BBC News School report (listen to some important information on where to find news).

Healthy reporter Quiz   (take the challenge and answer several questions).

Kermit news video. On this video, comment with a partner on the following questions.  

Where is the reporter?

When is the interview taking place?

Who is the reporter interviewing?

What does he want to know about?

How are "people" feeling?

Why are they feeling like that?

Then, listen to other classmates on their comments. Were their answers similar to yours?

The activity or profession of writing for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or preparing news to be broadcast.

A school report

In this mission, you and your classmates are going to play the role of reporters by starting your news search. We want you to keep us informed on what is going on at your school. Think of events or extracurricular activities that both, students and teachers, are preparing or have done.

Alexas_Fotos. Prensa (CC0)

Your work

Get together in groups of four students and think about an activity or event that is being planned or that has been recently done at your school. (If you are adventurous people, you can find out information about an event that has taken place outside school).

You can ask the head teachers of each department at your school about the activities that have been planned or done. Also you may get valuable information from the students taking part in these activities/events.

In your group, prepare a set of questions that will allow you to get key information. It is important to plan your interview very carefully. To do that, we recommend that you revisit the Huw Edwards' video on gathering information for a news story.

Consider as important the five Ws + H in Journalism that is, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, WHO and HOW. for your interview planning.

Revise your questionnaire carefully and distribute the questions among the members in your group.

Use a camera to record the interviews with the people participating in the activity. If there are more than one activity being planned at your school, you can prepare more questions to cover the information.

Edit the video with headlines announcing your news story and with subtitles containing useful information to understand better your news report. At the BBC News School site, you can find useful information on how to make a video news report.

On a fixed day, you will present the video with your interviews in front of your class group. When presenting, take turns to introduce the  type of activity on which you have based the interview. Also, give details about the people you have interviewed (who they are and what they are doing or have done). 

Before your presentation, you may revise Present tenses on both, the englishteststore.net and on the more-online.com sites.

Work evaluation

Your work on the questionnaire will be assessed by your teacher following the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing a questionnaire' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

The video that you produce and edit will be assessed considering the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Remember that you can evaluate other groups' work with the same criteria in these two rubrics. If you think that some criteria are missing, do not hesitate to tell your teacher and consider them to evaluate your classmates.

Work promotion

Publish your video on the page 'My Digital Resources'  in your Weebly site. You can share it with the rest of classmates on Pinterest. To do this, remember to accompany your post with an image.

When you finish your work, do not forget to open your learning diary and answer the questions on how well you think you performed your work.

Learning diary

How is it going? Open again your Learning Diary on your site and create a new post on your blog with the title  'A reporter's life'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering some questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Developing your news report

In your own words

Going on with your role as a reporter, in this part of the project, you are going to write down your own news story based on a past fact. Then, with your classmates, you will present orally a news report.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Learnt about relevant contents in a news story.

Written a news story

Researched important facts about a relevant person or event in history.

Designed a timeline.

Presented your news report about a fact or person in history.

As you already know, newspapers include stories based on a lot of different topics. What kind of news are you interested in?

rotia. Deporte (CC0)

The activities presented below will help you plan and develop your news story. We suggest that you start checking some  "Tips for a good news story".

Previous activities: planning your news report

Activity 1: Discussing current topics

You will start this section by discussing with your classmates on the topics that are the most important to you all.

Click on the headings below and choose one or two topics on which you would like to write your news story. Say why you would like to write on those topics.

Science

Your story may be about experiments that students are doing at your school or about global warming, natural disasters, new cures for diseases, etc.

Sport

You may interview sportspeople or report about a school competition, the last championship you have followed, the Olympic games, etc.

Culture & Entertainment

Here you can write about concerts that have taken place at your school or somewhere else. Also, about art exhibitions or about any other activities that people do in their free time.

Economics & Social Issues

Your inspiration can be found in how teenagers spend their money and the activities they can afford according to the money they have. To a bigger scale, you may refer to the economic crisis in your country or to the richest or poorest countries in the world.

Technology

You can write about inventions and new electronic devices that make people's lives easier. You may also refer to technology-related projects that students are carrying out at your school.

Politics

Your news story can be based on international or local politicians and the important things they are doing to improve society.

Maybe, you are interested in other topics. If so, tell your teacher

Activity 2: Identifying topics

Enter the newsinlevels site and choose three news stories. Read and relate each news story with one of the topics mentioned above. Compare the news you have chosen with your partner's. Then comment on how much you have understood each news story.

Activity 3: Working on headlines

Let us now work on headlines. They present the news story using clear and concise language. Enter the BBC website and check some headlines for different news. Here, you will be able to differentiate what's new from what it isn't.

Further speaking practice

Read the headlines below. With your classmates, imagine and comment on the content of each news story

Rare African Dinasour Bone Found

Macron Becomes French President

Princess Charlotte Turns Two

It is important that you learn about relevant contents for writing because you are going to plan and create your own news story in the mission below.

Extra resources

Newspaper Games for kids site. Take the quiz and reflect on what a good headline should be like.

Enter the Kiwi Kids news site and read more world-related news.

A head of a newspaper story or article usually printed in large type and giving the gist of the story or article that follows

When planning your news story, consider to include the 5 Ws + How. See the News story organizer file to help you plan your writing task.

Divide your text into paragraphs. Try to finish your news article with a quote or a catchy phrase.

Check your news story wiith a checklist.

Apart from relevant information, in your news story, you should include a headline and a byline, which is the reporter's name.

Yesterday news

The expression 'A yesterday's news' refers to something which is no longer interesting because it happened a long time ago.  However, we want to go back in time to recover some of the most fascinating facts or people that have helped human progress.

sandid. Periódico (CC0)

Please, click on the headings below to find out concise information about your work. In this mission, you are going to work individually first and then with three other classmates. 

Your work

Search for information about a famous person or an event you consider as important in history.

Plan and write a news story about the person or event following the tips stated in the previous section. Cover the five Ws and the H. Provide the story with an atttractive headline.

Share your news story with your teacher and classmates on Pinterest and publish it on the page entitled "My writing guide" in your Weebly site.

Get together in groups of four students. and present your news story to your group members.

Decide which of the four news stories you all want to develop and present in front of your classgroup.

Do further research and gather relevant information about this person or fact in history.

Discuss with your group on which are the most relevant details to include in your presentation..

Search for photos related to the person or event/fact.

With Canva or any other online tool, design a timeline where you will include relevant information.

Revise Past tenses at the englishtenses.com website to be able to talk about past actions.

On a fixed day, you will show your timeline to your class group and will present your report based on an important person or fact in history.

Work evaluation

Your teacher will evaluate your individual work on the writing task with the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing an informative text' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Your team work in this mission will be evaluated with the criteria found in the 'Rubric for assessing a timeline' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

The way you present your timeline will be also evaluated considering the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing an oral presentation' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Work promotion

Publish your timeline on the page entitled  'My digital resources' of your Weebly site. Share the timeline link with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach an image to the link.

After presenting all the timelines, the classgroup will vote for the best and most interesting presentation about a past event or person.

After completing the mission, remember to open your learning diary and answer the questions about how you felt while learning the contents to prepare your news story.

Learning diary

Create a new post on your blog with the title  'Your news report'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning process by answering some questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? How can your collaborative work be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

In brief

Coming events

People celebrate a lot of popular events in April. Earth day is on 22nd April. In a lot of places, people give roses and books to each other on 23rd April to commemorate World Book day. You and your classmates are going to gather information about important day celebrations at your school and to design a flyer to promote them.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Watched a video on Earth day.

Revised and learnt environment-related vocabulary

Practised the future simple tense WILL.

Gathered information on future important day celebrations at your school.

Designed a flyer promoting activities based on an international day.

teadrinker. La Tierra (CC0)

Previous activities: Earth day celebration

The activities presented below will help you in the realization of your next mission.

Activity 1: About Earth day

For a start, watch the video entitled Earth Day and pay attention to some natural elements and ecological disasters. With your classmates, comment on the questions below.

Why do you think people celebrate Earth Day?

What activities can people do on this day?

What natural elements can you see on the video?

What environmental problems can you identify?

To answer these questions more efficiently, you can enter the IELSTS webpage and study environment-related vocabulary. Read and listen to vocabulary on natural elements and environmental issues on the video entitled planet Earth museum.

Activity 2: Creating a wordmap

Use the online tool Canva to create a wordmap with new vocabulary on the environment. Apart, write sentences containing this key vocabulary and hand them to your teacher for correction.

Publish your wordmap on the page entitled "My digital resources" of your Weebly site and share it with your classmates on Pinterest.

Activity 3: Talking about the Environment

With your teacher and classmates, suggest any possible answers for the following question:

What environmental problems will happen if people do not take care of the Earth?

Before answering, have a look at the britishcouncil.org site to revise the form and use of the future simple tense to predict future actions.

It is important that you practise future simple structures because you will use them in the following mission. 

With your classgroup, suggest ideas on how the students at your school can help the environment.

Extra resources

Enter the Dogo news website and get some ideas on how you can celebrate Earth day.

At the official UN.org site, you can find information on international days.

Practise environment-related vocabulary on the British Council site.

These are defined as problems with the planet's systems (air, water, soil, etc.) that have developed as a result of human interference or mistreatment of the planet.

An important day at school

The mission you are about to start requires that you collect information about a future event that your school is planning to celebrate shortly.

OpenClipart-Vectors. Kids (CC0)

Please, click on the headings below and follow the instructions to do the mission accurately.

Your work

Get together in groups of four students.

Your group will ask the teachers at your school about a coming celebration of an International day.

Get sets of questions ready to ask your teachers about the celebration of the coming event.

Remember to use the five Ws and the H in your questions.

After collecting the information, create a flyer including the activities that will take place at your school on that day.

You can also suggest the teachers at your school some other important days that you could celebrate along the year. Get ideas from the UN.org site.

Add a headline and attractive images to your flyer/-s.

Work evaluation

The way you collect information for the flyer will be assessed by your teacher on the 'Rubric for assessing a questionnaire' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Your teacher will assess your work on the flyer considering the criteria in the 'Rubric for assessing a digital poster  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Work promotion

Copy the URL link to your flyer and publish it on the page entitled 'My digital resources' in your Weebly site.

Share the link to your flyer with your classmates on Pinterest. Remember to attach a picture to the link.

After completing your mission, enter your learning diary and answer the questions so that you can reflect on your learning process.

Learning diary

Create a new post on your blog entitled  'Coming events'.

Feedback

You will reflect about your learning using and answering some questions:

Which mission have you done in the group? What is its relationship with the project? 

Include the link to the resources that you have created (or embed them).

What resources have you used?

What were the most difficult aspects?

What tool was the most difficult for you to work with?

What do you think is the most important aspect you have learnt?

Is there anything you did not understand completely?

How are you working as a group? What can be improved?

It would be great if you also shared these feelings and thoughts with your classmates orally. You will have some minutes to complete this part.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

Breaking the news

Extra, extra!

Your experience as a reporter is more and more noted. You already know how to find out information and how to write and present news stories about past, present and future events. It is time for you start up your online newspaper in which you can include some breaking news that happen at your school or area.

At the end of this section, you will have:

Gathered and organized the information you have collected.

Designed the format of your newspaper.

Produced and edited the different parts of the newspaper.

Promoted your newspaper on the web and social networks.

Please, follow the instructions to carry out successfully the final challenge.

geralt. Noticias (CC0)

As you did in the other missions of the project, you are going  to work on the final challenge with three other students. Remember that you and your classmates can learn a lot by working collaboratively.

Your online newspaper

All your expertise and knowledge will enable you to face the great challenge you are about to start: the design, production and promotion of your online newspaper.

Pixaline. Noticias (CC0)

Your work on the final challenge will be assessed by your teacher with the criteria included in the 'Rubric for assessing the project' (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Please, follow the steps that we suggest you to complete the challenge.

Feedback

In groups of four students, you are going to create an online newspaper. You can choose one of the following online tools.

ARTHR

Paper.li

Crayon

Zinepal

Collect all the news stories that you all have written throughout the project and distribute and include them in several sections.

Among the sections, include a section entitled 'Did you know?' Here, you will publish all the news articles that you all have done on important people or facts in the past.

Create the 'Coming event' section. Here, include all the news stories related to the activities that your school is planning to celebrate some international days.

Invite other students from other courses to collaborate in your newspaper by writing their news stories so that you can get it updated regularly.

Copy the URL link to your online newspaper and post it on the page entitled 'My digital resources' of your  Weebly site. Share it on Pinterest with your classmates by attaching an image..

Promoting your work

You have made a great effort to complete all the missions and the challenge within this project. At this final stage of the project, we encourage you to show it to as many people as possible. The promotion of your project is a very important part of your work. Otherwise, what is the point in doing such hard work if nobody knows about it?

OpenClipartVectors. Proyecto (CC0)

In order to make this possible, we present you several activities that you must / could develop. Click on the heading below and read several ideas on how to promote your online newspaper.

Activities to promote your work

Why don't you show all your work to your family, friends and classmates? In groups, you will prepare and develop a complete presentation of your work. The final result can be developed in the classroom or/and recorded as a video that will be uploaded on a channel.

You can put flyers on the school walls announcing and promoting the launch of your online newspaper. Include the link to the page where it can be viewed. 

We want you to promote it by using the social network Pinterest. Your teacher will create a board and will invite you to collaborate by inserting the link to your newspaper. Remember to insert an image of the newspaper front page. You will find out the number of people that pin your newspaper, which means they like it.

Another promotional activity can be done by using your own school web page. Your teacher will create a page entitled 'English Portfolio - 2nd Year CSE'  in your school website and will include the links to your classmates and your own Weebly site. This would be not only a good way of promoting your work within your school community, but also a way of reaching a higher number of people interested in learning English through collaborative projects.

Any other ideas? Can you imagine other ways of promoting your work?

Learning diary - project assessment

Your participation in this project will be completely finished after you evaluate your own experience all along your learning process. 

You will create the final post entitled: "Breaking the news. Assessing the project". Here, reflect on your work and answer the key questions below.

Feedback

What final task have you done?

What have you learnt?

Knowledge

Skills

Values & Principles

How have you learnt?

What tasks and activities have you carried out?

What has been the most original in your opinion?

What has been the easiest tasks? And the most difficult? Why?

How has my team worked? What could be improved?

Do you like this way of working in the English subject? Why?

What do you think that can be improved in other projects? What do you think that has to remain the same?

Did you have the same difficulties as your classmates in the accomplishment of the missions?

Which missions did you find the most difficult to carry out?

Has collaborative work been a positive experience to you? Why / why not?

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Didactic Guidelines -

Didactic proposal

This resource, entitled Writing a Newspaper, is the fifth one within What a Digital World!, an OER series which  is addressed to EFL students of the 2nd year of CSE. However, as a teacher, you can  implement this material on other levels by adapting or modifying  its contents. 

Here, apart form acquiring linguistic knowledge of the English Language, students will have the chance to know relevant contents about the profession of a journalist. They will become also able to distinguish the different sections in a newspaper and will go into the process of finding information to write a news story. 

This project will enable students to learn and develop contents, procedures and attitudes related to the basic knowledge areas of communication, multilingualism and intercultural values of the new educational curriculum. 

Download this Didactic Guideline in editable format or in PDF.

By working on this resource, students will face some individual activities, but also some collaborative tasks and a final project in which they will use all their knowledge and will demonstrate how able they are to develop and consolidate some specific and key competences  in several  learning situations similar to those in which people may get involved in real life.

Writing a Newspaper has been designed to achieve the following objectives:

to learn while working on a project.

to encourage collaborative work, since most assignments require information sharing and interaction with other students.

to foster students' self-learning process by using IT resources.

to reinforce students' communicative skills through activities of listening and reading comprehension, but above all, through tasks in which they must produce their own oral and written messages.

The project includes several stages that students will need to go through to eventually do the final challenge based on the edition and promotion of an online newspaper. Within this learning resource, relevant language contents can be practised and a wide range of tasks  (named missions in this OER) is presented so that students get encouraged to practise and improve the linguistic skills required for their final output.

About the project is the first section of the project containing information about the channels that students will use to publish and share all their work as we think that they will be happy to showcase their outputs to both, familiy and classmates. From the wide range of websites and social networks available, we suggest that students have their own site at weebly.com, just like a portfolio, where they can post all their work and complete a Learning diary that will help them reflect on their own learning process.

Encourage students to design their site following a clear structure. Their site must contain at least these pages:

Homepage, the first and main page which must include a title, index, images and a description of the project.
My writing guide. This page will include all the student's writing tasks and tips for good writing.
Key vocabulary . Students will include here links to the wordmaps and charts that they create using key vocabulary.
My digital resources.. On this page, students will publish the links to the digital material that they will have created in their tasks like the format of a  newspaper and the design a flyer on a future event.

On the other hand, students can use Pinterest to share their outcome with the people they like. Google drive apps will be also used for writing texts and preparing presentations collaborativelly. Besides, students can collect and add notes about vocabulary and grammar using online tools such as Cacoo and Canva.

The other stages of this resource are listed in the Learning Path section of this didactic guideline. In this section, we include the learning objectives  as well as the recommended timing for each stage of the project.

Curricular Framework

Competencias clave

Competencia en comunicación lingüística (CCL) 

Competencia Plurilingüe (CP)

Competencia en conciencia y expresiones culturales (CEC) 

Competencia digital (CD) 

Competencia personal, social y de aprender a aprender (CPSAA) 

Competencia ciudadana (CC) 

Competencia emprendedora (CE)

Competencias específicas y criterios de evaluación

Competencia específica 1: Comprender e interpretar el sentido general y los detalles más relevantes de textos expresados de forma clara y en la lengua estándar

Criterios de evaluación
1.1. Interpretar y analizar el sentido global y la información específica y explícita de textos orales, escritos y multimodales breves y sencillos sobre temas frecuentes y cotidianos, de relevancia personal y próximos a la experiencia del alumnado

1.2. Seleccionar, organizar y aplicar de forma guiada las estrategias y conocimientos más adecuados en situaciones comunicativas cotidianas para comprender el sentido general, la información esencial y los detalles más relevantes de los textos.

Competencia específica 2: Producir textos originales, de extensión media, sencillos y con una organización clara, usando estrategias tales como la planificación, la compensación o la autorreparación, para expresar de forma creativa, adecuada y coherente mensajes relevantes y responder a propósitos comunicativos concretos.

Criterios de evaluación

2.1. Expresar oralmente textos breves, sencillos, estructurados, comprensibles y adecuados a la situación comunicativa sobre asuntos cotidianos y frecuentes, de relevancia para el alumnado

2.2. Organizar y redactar textos breves y comprensibles con aceptable claridad, coherencia, cohesión y adecuación a la situación comunicativa propuesta, siguiendo pautas establecidas, a través de herramientas analógicas y digitales.

2.3. Seleccionar, organizar y aplicar de forma guiada conocimientos y estrategias para planificar, producir y revisar textos comprensibles, coherentes y adecuados a las intenciones comunicativas.

Competencia específica 3: Interactuar con otras personas con creciente autonomía, usando estrategias de cooperación y empleando recursos analógicos y digitales, para responder a propósitos comunicativos concretos en intercambios respetuosos con las normas de cortesía.

Criterios de evaluación

3.1. Planificar y participar en situaciones interactivas breves y sencillas sobre temas cotidianos, de relevancia personal y próximos a la experiencia del alumnado.

3.2. Seleccionar y utilizar, de forma guiada y en entornos próximos, estrategias elementales para saludar, despedirse y presentarse; expresar mensajes sencillos y breves; y formular y contestar preguntas básicas para la comunicación.

Competencia específica 4: Mediar en situaciones cotidianas entre distintas lenguas, usando estrategias y conocimientos sencillos orientados a explicar conceptos o simplificar mensajes, para transmitir información de manera eficaz, clara y responsable.

Criterios de evaluación

4.1 Inferir y explicar textos, conceptos y comunicaciones breves y sencillas en situaciones en las que atender a la diversidad, mostrando respeto y empatía por interlocutores e interlocutoras y por las lenguas empleadas, e interés por participar en la solución de problemas de intercomprensión y de entendimiento en el entorno próximo, apoyándose en diversos recursos y soportes.

4.2. Aplicar, de forma guiada, estrategias que ayuden a crear puentes y faciliten la comprensión y producción de información y la comunicación, adecuadas a las intenciones comunicativas, usando recursos y apoyos físicos o digitales en función de las necesidades de cada momento.

Competencia específica 5: Ampliar y usar los repertorios lingüísticos personales entre distintas lenguas, reflexionando de forma crítica sobre su funcionamiento y tomando conciencia de las estrategias y conocimientos propios, para mejorar la respuesta a necesidades comunicativas concretas.

Criterios de evaluación

5.1. Comparar y contrastar las semejanzas y diferencias entre distintas lenguas reflexionando de manera progresivamente autónoma sobre su funcionamiento.

5.2. Utilizar y diferenciar los conocimientos y estrategias de mejora de la capacidad de comunicar y de aprender la lengua extranjera con apoyo de otros participantes y de soportes analógicos y digitales.

5.3. Identificar y registrar, siguiendo modelos, los progresos y dificultades de aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera, seleccionando de forma guiada las estrategias más eficaces para superar esas dificultades y progresar en el aprendizaje, realizando actividades de autoevaluación y coevaluación.

Competencia específica 6: Valorar críticamente y adecuarse a la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística a partir de la lengua extranjera, identificando y compartiendo las semejanzas y las diferencias entre lenguas y culturas, para actuar de forma empática y respetuosa en situaciones interculturales.

Criterios de evaluación

6.1. Actuar de forma empática y respetuosa en situaciones interculturales construyendo vínculos entre las diferentes lenguas y culturas.

6.2. Aceptar y adecuarse a la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística propia de países donde se habla la lengua extranjera, reconociéndola como fuente de enriquecimiento personal.

6.3 Aplicar, de forma guiada, estrategias para explicar y apreciar la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística, atendiendo a valores ecosociales y democráticos y respetando los principios de justicia, equidad e igualdad.

Saberes básicos

A. Comunicación

Autoconfianza. El error como instrumento de mejora y propuesta de reparación.

Estrategias básicas para la planificación, ejecución, control y reparación de la comprensión, la producción y la coproducción de textos orales, escritos y multimodales.

Conocimientos, destrezas y actitudes que permitan detectar y colaborar en actividades de mediación en situaciones cotidianas sencillas.

Funciones comunicativas básicas adecuadas al ámbito y al contexto comunicativo:  explicar las diferentes partes y secciones de un periódico, preguntar para averiguar información relevante sobre un suceso, redactar una noticia siguiendo los 5 principios de conducta de un buen periodista,, narrar de manera oral y escrita una noticia sobre un hecho pasado, informar sobre un acontecimiento futuro.

Modelos contextuales y géneros discursivos básicos en la comprensión, producción y coproducción de textos orales, escritos y multimodales, breves y sencillos, literarios y no literarios: características y reconocimiento del contexto (participantes y situación), expectativas generadas por el contexto; organización y estructuración según el género y la función textual.

Unidades lingüísticas básicas y significados asociados a dichas unidades tales el espacio y las relaciones espaciales, tiempos verbales en presente y en pasado, preguntas abiertas, tiempo futuro con WILL.

Léxico de uso común y de interés para el alumnado: partes y secciones de un periódico, tareas de un reportero, adjetivos de opinión, temas de actualidad, el medioambiente.

Patrones sonoros, acentuales, rítmicos y de entonación básicos, y significados e intenciones comunicativas generales asociadas a dichos patrones.

Convenciones ortográficas básicas y significados e intenciones comunicativas asociados a los formatos, patrones y elementos gráficos.

Convenciones y estrategias conversacionales básicas, en formato síncrono o asíncrono, para iniciar, mantener y terminar la comunicación, tomar y ceder la palabra, pedir y dar aclaraciones y explicaciones, reformular, comparar y contrastar, resumir, colaborar, debatir, etc.

Recursos para el aprendizaje y estrategias básicas de búsqueda de información: diccionarios, libros de consulta, bibliotecas, recursos digitales e informáticos, etc.

Identificación de la autoría de las fuentes consultadas y los contenidos utilizados.

Herramientas analógicas y digitales básicas para la comprensión, producción y coproducción oral, escrita y multimodal; y plataformas virtuales de interacción, cooperación y colaboración educativa (aulas virtuales, videoconferencias, herramientas digitales colaborativas, etc.) para el aprendizaje, la comunicación y el desarrollo de proyectos con hablantes o estudiantes de la lengua extranjera.

B. Plurilingüismo

Estrategias y técnicas para responder eficazmente a una necesidad comunicativa básica y concreta de forma comprensible, a pesar de las limitaciones derivadas del nivel de competencia en la lengua extranjera y en las demás lenguas del repertorio lingüístico propio.

Estrategias básicas para identificar, organizar, retener, recuperar y utilizar creativamente unidades lingüísticas (léxico, morfosintaxis, patrones sonoros, etc.) a partir de la comparación de las lenguas y variedades que conforman el repertorio lingüístico personal.

Estrategias y herramientas básicas de autoevaluación y coevaluación, analógicas y digitales, individuales y cooperativas.

Léxico y expresiones de uso común para comprender enunciados sobre la comunicación, la lengua, el aprendizaje y las herramientas de comunicación y aprendizaje (metalenguaje).

Comparación básica entre lenguas a partir de elementos de la lengua extranjera y otras lenguas: origen y parentescos.

C. Interculturalidad

La lengua extranjera como medio de comunicación interpersonal e internacional, como fuente de información y como herramienta para el enriquecimiento personal.

Interés e iniciativa en la realización de intercambios comunicativos a través de diferentes medios con hablantes o estudiantes de la lengua extranjera.

Aspectos socioculturales y sociolingüísticos básicos relativos a la vida cotidiana, las condiciones de vida y las relaciones interpersonales; convenciones sociales básicas; lenguaje no verbal, cortesía lingüística y etiqueta digital; cultura, costumbres y valores propios de países donde se habla la lengua extranjera.

Estrategias básicas para entender y apreciar la diversidad lingüística, cultural y artística, atendiendo a valores ecosociales y democráticos.

Estrategias básicas de detección y actuación ante usos discriminatorios del lenguaje verbal y no verbal.

Writing a Newspaper

(Intro to resource)

About the project

Getting informed

A Reporter's Life

Developing your News Report

In Brief

Breaking the News

CCL
-

X
X
X
 X
X

CP
-
X
X
X
X
X
X

STEM
-

X
X
X

CD
-
X
X
X
X
X
X

CPSAA
-
X
X
X
X
 X
 X

CC
-

X

CE
-

X

 X
 X

CCEC
-

X

X
X

Competencia en comunicación lingüística (CCL), Competencia plurilingüe (CP), Competencia matemática, ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería (STEM), Competencia digital (CD), Competencia personal, social y de aprender a aprender (CPSAA), Competencia ciudadana(CC), Competencia emprendedora (CE), Competencia en conciencia y expresión culturales (CCEC)

Learning Path

Section

Objectives

Sessions

Writing a Newspaper

Introduce the topic to students.

 1 session

About the Project

Make students become familiar with the structure of the project and the tools they will use to perform, publish and self-assess the tasks and the final challenge.

Getting Informed

Analize and compare different newspapers.

Learn about the parts and sections in a newspaper.

Read and listen to several news.

Present the launch of a new newspaper.

2 sessions

A Reporter's Life

Learn about some kid reporters' fact files.

Learn about how to gather information to write a news story.

Practise open questions.

Create and present a video report.

 2 sessions

Developing your News Report

Learn about relevant contents in a news story.

Write a news story.

Design a timeline.

Present a news report about a fact or person in history.

2 sessions

In Brief

Watch a video on Earth day.

Revise and learn environment-related vocabulary.

Practise the future simple tense WILL.

Design a flyer promoting activities to celebrate an international day at school.

 1 session

Breaking the News

Gather and organize the information students have collected.

Design the format of a newspaper.

Produce and edit the different parts of the newspaper.

Promote students' newspaper on the web and social networks.

2 sessions

The tasks and the final challenge in this resource can be approached from several didactic departments working in a collaborative way. Here, we suggest some ways in which different departments could contribute.

We consider Multilingualism as really important as we think that students can enrich their linguistic learning and  acquire intercultural values more easily if they develop their communicative competence not only in the official language/-s from where they live, but also in the foreign language/-s that they study. A way in which both, the English teacher and the Spanish teacher can coordinate their work together is by making students gather all the key words and expressions and write them in both languages so that they identify any English linguistic loans or linguistic calques  and reflect on the big influence of the English language on the Spanish language.

The ITC Departmetn can help students on the use of the different tools and apps that are required to carry out the students' outputs. 

In History, the teacher may encourage students to search for some important historical facts so that students write about and include them in a section about the past in the newspaper. This section could be entitled Did you know...?

Considering a didactic approach to this resource from the Science department, the teacher could foster the preparation of a list of eco-friendly measures that could be included in a newspaper section about environmental matters to promote and celebrate the Earth's day.

One way or another, all the didactic departments can take action on the contents of this resource, think them over and suggest other optional tasks that facilitate students the acquisition of the linguistic contents included and the development of the key and specific competences contemplated in the curriculum of the English subject. 

Assessment

We highlight the formative character of the evaluation process within this resource. Along the project, teachers will be observing and monitoring the students' work and will use a system of rubrics to assess their performance in every task. These rubrics contain relevant criteria to detect any difficulties in the students'  competential development and, with the feedback that these tools provide, teachers can readjust contents and take action in one way or another to help students  perform their work successfully.

The evaluation process will also have both, a diagnostic nature and a summative nature.. All in all, the students' work will be assessed throughout the whole learning process. Find below some more information about the stages in the assessment process.

At the beginning of the resource

Diagnostic assessment. Teachers can get some feedback from students by asking them some prompt questions so that they can check  the students' previous knowledge about the topic of this resource. Also, at this stage, teachers should inform students about the tools that will be used to assess their work, that is, rubrics, learning diary to assess students' own work and assessment sheets to evaluate their peers' work.

During the process

Teachers will assess their students' work by observation in class and they will use the rubrics listed below. These rubrics contain the relevant criteria to identify progress or difficulties in the students' leaning process.  Each rubric is  associated with a task in each section.

Rubric for assessing a presentation.

Rubric for assessing a questionnaire.

Rubric for assessing a video in the classroom.

Rubric for assessing an informative text.

Rubric for assessing a timeline.

Rubric for assessing a digital poster.

Rubric for assessing your digital site. This refers to  Weebly site where students will publish all their work of this and other projects.

Apart from the rubrics, students will be able to self-assess their work by completing a learning diary  with which they can reflect on how well they are  doing.

Peer evaluation.  Throughout the project, students will be able to assess their classmates' work with an assessment sheet with the items that they consider as relevant. This assessing tool can enrich the learning process since students are required to take on a critical point of view and so they can contribute to improve their classmates' outputs.

At the end of the process

Summative evaluation. Considering that the final challenge of the project must gather the main contents that students have learnt and practiced, this OER  includes a final project rubric containing  the necessary items so that teachers check to what extent students are able to cope with the learning situation suggested in the last stage: the edition and promotion of an online newspaper.

Tips for teachers

As a teacher, you may feel free to use the entire resource or just the sections that best match your teaching demands and the real conditions of your class group. Notwithstanding, if you decide to use this resource in its totality, we recommend that you consider the guidelines below before your students start working on the contents.

Info about structure & contents

Each section features the learning objectives, the contents and the activities that students must do to eventually be able to perform a task. Make sure your students know about the nature of the different tasks and of the final challenge they will be carrying out. You can devote one or two lessons to clarify the different stages throughout the resource and the tools and apps which students are required to use to produce and promote their work.

Assessment info

Raise students' awareness about how and what you will consider to evaluate their work. Focus their attention on the rubrics of the different tasks and of the final challenge so that they get to know about the way their performance will be assessed.

Encourage students to use their learnig diary so that they can reflect on how well they are performing in their learning process.This learning diary may help students themselves  detect some learning difficulties that can be overcome with reinforcement activities facilitated by the teacher.

Within this resource, students can become teachers for a while and assess their classmates' outputs by designing and completing an assessment sheet with items that provide them with some feedback about their peers' performance. After completing this assessment sheet, you can have a class discussion with your students to analize the most common errors and the main difficulties that your class group has detected while analizing their peers' work.

Info about tools

Clearly, this resource fosters the use of digital devices and includes a wide range of apps to produce and share the students' outputs. However, in case that your students or school suffer from a digital divide, we encourage you to use this resource as a guide and  make students work in an analogic way by using cardboards instead of digital posters, notebooks for writing tasks and as learning diaries or your classroom notice board, which can be used to publish and share your pupils' work.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Credits and download -

Title | Writing a newspaper | What a digital world!
Coordination | Centro Nacional de Desarrollo Curricular en Sistemas no Propietarios (Cedec)
Authorship | María José Alcaina Fort
License | Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0

This content was created with eXeLearning, your free and open source editor to create educational resources.

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Information on licensing and use

This open educational resource has got a CC BY-SA license and therefore it can be used, downloaded, modified and adapted, as long as the name of the creator is provided, and in case of being transformed and publishing a new version, it must be done under the same CC BY-SA license as the original.

The following text can be used to acknowledge authorship in case of modification of the resource:

This material is an adaptation of the original resource "Writing a Newspaper" from Cedec's  EDIA project.

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)

- Resource feedback -

Help us improve this resource and take the EDIA Project questionnaire on this OER. Thanks for contributing.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

Creado con eXeLearning (Ventana nueva)