Writing News Articles

A few times a year, our students are asked to write news articles.  They are asked to do this in response to literature,  about events happening around the school and as a school wide writing prompt.  All too often, we ask the kids to write the article, but don't really tell them how to do it beyond including the 5 Ws.

In recent years, we have found the kids have been more successful in grade six by using a structure for the articles.

The structure we use is as follows:

     First Paragraph: 

• A general overview, including all the 5 Ws.  
• You should get the general idea of the whole article from this.

     Detailed Paragraphs:  

• The paragraphs following the first paragraph are dedicated to giving more specific details on an element of the story.  
• It may be a paragraph that tells more about an event, character, location, etc.  For each specific area, there should be a specific paragraph.

     Quotes:  

• Students should then provide a quote that captures something important about the article. 
• The quote should be specific...not "it was fun!"

News articles are then assessed on the content of the article and content management.



Example: