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Newspapers in Education -- High School WritingCompiled by Tom JanzIn the last two years, newspaperman Tom Janz has traveled hundreds of miles across the Kenai Peninsula, showing teachers how to use the newspaper as an educational tool in their classrooms. Janz is Marketing and Circulation Manager of the Peninsula Clarion, a small paper for the Kenai Peninsula, and he is also the administrator of the Clarion's Newspapers in Education (N.I.E.) program. He has written workbooks for grade schools, middle schools and high schools that contain hundreds of lessons to get students involved with the newspaper. For high school the exercises are broken down by subject (reading, writing, health, science, math, etc.), and each subject is farther categorized into knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. "My aim," says Janz, "has been to give the high school kids a more comprehensive understanding of the paper and the world at large." If you would like to have Tom Janz visit your school with ideas about Newspapers in Education, call (907) 283-7551. Writing Exercises 1. Examine the editorial cartoons in the newspaper. Look for use of symbols, persuasion and stereotyping as they are used to elect political humor or satire. Then determine:
2. Interview someone and write a lead paragraph for a news story. Be sure to put the 5 W's in your lead, and write in the inverted pyramid style (from most important news to least). 3. An editorial generally consists of four different parts - the question, proof, conclusion and suggestions for reader action. Review several editorials and identify the four components. Write an editorial based on a topic of your choice. Show it to someone and together edit and re-write the piece. Read your editorial to someone and ask for feedback. Then write a final version. 4. Being a critic demands only an appreciation of the art form and exposure to it. If you listen to CDs, watch TV, or go to the movies, you can be a critic. After listening to a CD or watching a movie, write a review of it. Include in your review: comparisons of the artist's performance to those of the past; a recommendation for other people to either miss or catch a performance; and the reasons for your appraisals. 5. Work with a buddy. Review some advice columns and one of you write a letter stating a problem. Give it to your buddy to answer the letter and give advice. Change roles so you both have the opportunity to be an advice columnist.
6. Review the names and definitions of the following types of propaganda:
7. Write a letter to the editor to defend or promote a point of view. Use one or two specific propaganda techniques and indicate in the margins of the paper which techniques were used. 8. What does fact have in common with opinion? What is the relationship between the two? Find an article which demonstrates the relationship and use it to illustrate your explanation. 9. Choose an ad with more than one type of propaganda technique used to sell a product. Find the different techniques used, and distinguish between them. Point out where they are different from each other and where they begin to merge within their single purpose of propagandizing the product. 10. Choose a letter to the editor which proposes a distinct course of action. After identifying which propaganda technique(s) is used, predict the outcome(s) of following the proposed course of action. Be as complete as possible, and support your predictions with examples of the outcomes of similar situations found in the newspaper. 11. Invent an international problem, using real situations from international news articles as a springboard to your invented situation. (Use real names, places, and situations, and identify with articles these came from.) Then, write a news article about the invented problem, keeping in mind that you are citizens of the United States and will be writing from that viewpoint. 12. Design eight different ads for "Sudso" soap - one for each type of propaganda technique. 13. Evaluate the message of one of today's editorial articles. First determine what the editor's viewpoint is, and explain in your own words what the issue is, and what stand is being taken. What is your opinion about the issue? What are the facts upon which your opinion is based? Compare your opinion with the editor's opinion for differences and similarities, and make a final, supported statement in favor of one viewpoint. (If you agree with the editorial pretend you don't and argue against it.) 14. Judge and evaluate a letter to the editor which proposes a distinct course of action. Determine whether the propaganda techniques used were well chosen to achieve the desired goal of persuasion. Would other techniques have worked better? Were the techniques used, well used? Could the letter have been written better? Be specific in your judgments and evaluations, and give examples to support your statements. 15. After completing the activity above, if you did not agree with the proposed course of action in the letter to the editor, propose an alternate course of action. Predict what the outcome(s) of your proposal will be, and evaluate them against a set of standards. (This plan would achieve positive results ... This plan would be the best because ...) Vocabulary of Newspaper Terms You May Find in These Exercises:
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Writing Workbook Multiple Skill Levels
Elementary
Middle School
High School
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