Writing like the pros

I. Goals for Understanding Students use information from real news stories to write their own while learning appropriate style and format.
II. Essential Questions
• Identify the 5 W’s and H.
• What is the lead?
III. Critical Engagement Questions
• What format is used to write the story?
• What questions were asked of witnesses and/or sources?
IV. Overviews and Timeline
Activity 1 (One 50-minute class)
This will take some prior planning. News stories collected should not be stories students might have read recently. Choose a couple of hard news stories. Teacher should paraphrase all information listed in the story including as much detail as possible. Next list all the quotes found in the story. These should be written as bullet-points. After reviewing the information with the students, the students will write a news story based on the information they have been given. From the list of quotes, encourage students to write questions that may have been asked.
V. Assessment
After stories are written, pass out copies of the original stories to students and see how they compare.