Unit 1 Overview

Unit 1

How the Newspaper Works: Practicing Roles and Skills

Overview

This unit opens the world of journalism to students, inviting them to step beyond the newspaper’s front page to share the experiences of journalists, not just as observers but as participants. Students begin with a videotape field trip to a city newspaper. Along the way, they will have the opportunity to learn about newspaper publishing from the inside out. By the end of the unit, they will have written a news story of their own. Students will hone reading, writing, and computer skills that are essential for success in later life.

Learning Objectives

Through hands-on activities completed individually or cooperatively in pairs or small groups, students will

• describe the roles of the people who produce a newspaper and some skills they need to do their jobs
• identify the basic ingredients of journalistic writing, including the “5 Ws” (Who?/What?/Where?/When?/Why?)
• recognize ways information is organized in nonfiction writing, such as cause and effect, chronological order, comparison and contrast, and the inverted pyramid model
• explain and follow the five steps of the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publication

Proficiencies

The proficiency test outcomes emphasized in Unit 1 are:

Writing—Content, Organization, and Language

Reading—Nonfiction


Overall Correlations

Home     Back