Newspaper Writing Literature Lesson Plans
Teach Creative Writing Through Journalism Essay Writing Prompts
Nov 13, 2009
One way to teach creative writing to students is with literature lesson plans designed around the style of newspaper writing. A creative writing lesson based on journalism will get kids thinking imaginatively about many different subjects such as crime, sports, and events that can occur in the world or local community. Some of the article ideas may be outlandish, but it’s all part of the creative fun of these writing exercises!
Newspaper Writing Variations
Depending on the students’ writing skills and age, writing exercises and writing prompts can be given to encourage kids at a variety of writing levels. Have them come up with ideas for headlines, pictures, and captions, or even a paragraph or two based on essay writing prompts in typical newspaper categories.
Journalism Essay Writing Prompt Ideas
Writing prompts for this creative writing lesson plan can be broad or more detailed. Simple categories can be supplied and the students can brainstorm their own stories. Alternatively, headlines for specific stories can be provided and kids can be encouraged to make the headline more creative and catchy. Here are a few basic headline writing prompts for this fun newspaper exercise:
- Hometown Football Team Wins Championship
- Armed Robbery at Ray’s Corner Store
- Fifth Grade Student Wins National Spelling Competition
- Food Pantry Needs Donations
- Local Inventor Designs New Car
- Cure for Cancer Found
- Fireman Saves Litter of Kittens from Blazing Apartment Building
- Jet Plane Crashes on Highway
- Woman Sees UFO
Newspaper Writing Literature Lesson Plan Ideas for Teachers
Individualized or group literature lesson plans for newspaper writing can be designed based on the size of the class, age of students, and how well the kids work together.
Newspaper Writing Lesson Plan Materials:
- Worksheets with space for headline, picture, picture caption, and writing area
- Pencils
- Colored pencils
- Pictures cut from magazines, optional
- Laptops if available, optional
Steps for Individual Literature Lesson Plan:
- On each worksheet, supply a different newspaper category for each student, such as “Sports – Football”, “Crime – Robbery”, “Advertisement – Auto”, “Children’s Event – School Fundraiser”, etc. or a more detailed headline writing prompt (see above).
- Hand out the worksheets to students and have them work on a catchy headline, picture, caption, and a lead paragraph (or two) about the story they have imagined.
- Once students have completed the creative writing assignment, collect the worksheets.
- Make copies of them, bind them and create a class newspaper!
Steps for the Group Literature Lesson Plan:
- Similar to the steps in the individual newspaper writing exercise above, have students complete their literature lesson plan worksheets.
- Then, assign groups in which four or five students come together with similar categories. For example, each group should have at least one crime, event, sport, advertisement, etc.
- Have the groups “edit” and assemble their own newspapers. For a finishing touch, have the students in each group come up with a newspaper name, logo, date, and volume number on a cover sheet and include with their newspapers.
- Groups can then present their news to the rest of the class.
Teach creative writing to kids with newspaper writing exercises, headline writing prompts, and literature lesson plans based on journalism. Students can work individually to create one big class newspaper, or in groups where they will also learn about editing and collaborating as a team. Whichever way, newspaper writing will be unique, creative literature lesson plans for elementary classes.
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