By Isabel Pérez Torres

Time 5-6 hours

Introduction | Task | Process | Resources | Evaluation | Conclusion

What are the main stories in today's newspapers?
That all depends on what newspaper you are
working for!                                                                                                        

Introduction

Congratulations!!  You have been selected to work for two online news sites. You will have to report on home news and sport and entertainment in Spain. You are a team of two freelance reporters that usually work together. On this ocassion you will have to do your job very urgently because they do not have any other reporters in Spain at this moment. The only problem is that these two news sites have opposite writing styles and they are addressed to very different readers. One is a popular news site and the other is a quality one.

TasksTask

- You will be working together, but each of you will have a different role in the team.

- You will have to write two reports for each news site, that is, one about sport or entertainment and one about home or political news for each media site, but as you are writing articles for two opposing news sites, you will have to rewrite the news twice or send different pieces of news to them.  It will mean four articles in total. Follow the process described below.

  Process

1red.gif (853 bytes). Read all directions before you start. Use the resources listed below to search the news sites and find some help to write your articles. 

2red.gif (877 bytes). Find a partner to work with and decide who is going to play each of the following role :

- politics and home news reporter

- sport and entertainment reporter

3red.gif (887 bytes). Visit the resources selected in this table and decide which news sites you are working for. Select one in each column:

BBC News
Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
Times online
CNN News

Daily Mirror
The Sun Newspaper Online
Ananova News
Daily Express
News of the World

 

You have to work as a team because you have to create your page for each news site together.

3red.gif (887 bytes). Discuss the language and style characteristics that you are going to take into account for each news website.

3red.gif (887 bytes). Select the current Spanish stories about which you are going to write. You can use Spanish news sites to select them. Save the pictures that you want to include in your reports.

3red.gif (887 bytes). Use a word processing program to write and illustrate your articles (remember that you will have to create two different pages, one for each news site). 

Once you have finished your reports submit them as an attachment Attachment by e-mail.

  Resources:

Web Resources  News Sites and Newspapers Online


BBC News
Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
Times online
CNN News

Daily Mirror
The Sun Newspaper Online
Ananova News
Daily Express
News of the World

UK Newspapers Online and Worldwide Newspapers in English
European News Sites in Original Languages

Some articles to help you write your reports

Structure of news writing
Language of news writing
Language of the article- Grid
Table about the 5 W's and an H of the story
How to Write a News Article
Write a Good Press Release
Newspaper articles should contain the following items

Evaluation

 

Each team will make two written projects. Students' work should be original. Spelling and grammar should be correct.   Students should write a short introduction explaining which online news sites they chose to work for and why they chose them.

Conclusion

Eventually, students have used the information that they obtained from reading the news to to understand the language and structure of news writing and to write and illustrate their own reports.

 



This site is best viewed at 800 x 600 resolution