Extra! Read All About It
Module 1, Activity 2.1 - Finding Stories and Writing Releases
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:

There are stories all around us; we just need to ask the right questions, search in the right places. In this lesson, the students will spend time brainstorming story ideas, finding the primary questions they would like to answer, and writing their own press releases.

Activities:

Task One - Finding a Story
There are many things going on in every community that would make interesting news stories. For the purpose of this lesson, students should try to brainstorm a list of activities or ideas with which they may already be involved or have easy access. See examples on the student page for this lesson.

Their task will be to write a news release that would interest a paper in "picking up the story".

Task Two - Prioritizing
The purpose of a news release is to grab the editor's attention and interest her in the story.

Task Three - Questions to Answer
Once the students have written down the basics of their story, they should create a list of other questions that might be interesting to readers.

Task Four - What a News Release Should Look Like
Now the students must imagine that they are editors. They receive hundreds of news releases a week from people hoping that they will cover their story. As a class discuss and determine what an editor would like to see in a news release.

Task Five - Writing the Release
Once students have decided on a story, and a list of criteria for the news release, it is time to write.

If students need an example of a basic news release, you may want to suggest they check the Government of Saskatchewan website. This website posts news releases from all departments.

Be sure to keep a copy of the releases done by your students - you may be able to use them in coming lessons.

Assessment and Evaluation:

Tasks One through Four lead the students toward writing their own news release.

In Task Five the students are to create their own news release which can be assessed by the teacher. Since Task Four has required the class to brainstorm the characteristics of a quality news release, these ideas can be used in the assessment as well. Using the characteristics that the students have come up with, the class or the teacher alone can create a checklist with which to evaluate the release.

The teacher facilitates the students in creating the checklist so that the end product will have all the content requirements (headline, 5Ws and the H, proper info in specific paragraphs) as well as necessary style requirements (interesting headline, easy to scan, simple language, and appropriate grammar and mechanics).

Once the news releases have been handed in, you may use the checklist to assess the news releases. Rather than assigning a number grade, it may be more appropriate to make anedotal comments about the criteria the students did not fulfill. If there is time, you may want to have the students hand in the news release a second time so they can make corrections and see progress in their own writing. This gives the students another way to be involved in the assessment of their own work.