Traveling Through Time
Module 1, Activity 1.7 - Introduction to Newspapers
Student Page
(teacher version of this page)

Introduction:

What is news and how we learn about it has changed over time. In this lesson, you get to do a skit, see some historical photos and read newspaper articles that are over 100 years old.

Activities:

Task One - Time Travel Drama
You and your group need to select one of the eras listed below. Your job is to communicate what was news in that time through a short scene. Two of your group members are time travelers investigating what is news, and the rest of the group members are people from that time. Once you have selected the time period, brainstorm what might be news. Examples might be invasion, crop failure or fashion in the capitol. Then choose who your characters are and create an improvised drama for the class. Each drama should be no more than 4 minutes in length.

• Middle Ages
• Tribal Society
• Wild West
• Gangsters
• Hippies in the 60's
• Classical times (Greek/Roman)
  

• WWII
• the Cold War
• Canada prior to first contact
• a Sask. farming community in 1930's

Not the drama type?
Shift gears and look at some photos, then do some writing.

Task Two - Setting the Foundation
As a class, you need to decide how you know what is news and how that has changed over history. Participate in the class discussion that starts back in time, then moves us to newspapers in our modern society.

Task Three - Timely News

Select one the news stories between the 1880's and 1910. These stories were published by Saskatchewan papers. For the story you select, test it against elements of newsworthiness.

Objectives:

You will be able to
- recognize how pervasive information is in contemporary society.
- consider how print journalism has changed and evolved over the years.
- recognize the role of news reporting in print media, especially newspapers.

Task Three Continued. . .

First, write a brief precis of your story. Since a precis is a summary of the main points only, your summary should be about one third of the length of the article.

Secondly, you will need to compare your story to the criteria for newsworthiness listed below. Put the number and word for each criteria on the same piece of paper as your precis. Then write one or two sentences saying if your story meets the criteria and defending your response. In this activity, you need to show that you can find the key points and that you can evaluate a story to see if it is newsworthy.

1. Importance (Is the news important to the lives of the readers?)

2. Timeliness (Are the events of interest to readers right now?)

3. Proximity (Did the events occur near the readers?)

4. Prominence (Are the people involved in the news well-known?)

5. Conflict (Are people opposing each other?)

6. Progress (Is the news about new developments?)

7. Emotions (Do the events involve feelings of love, hate, fear, pity, or horror?)

from the Journalism Studies 20 Curriculum