For my secondgraders, I thought a newspaper unit would not only give them experience with newspapers, but will also provide them with the practice in writing that they need. However, to secondgraders, the thought of creating an entire newspaper on one's own seemed RATHER DAUNTING. Therefore, my introduction to the newspaper unit began with comics. Using comics was a fun and somewhat sneaky way for students to begin to notice the newspaper. Using comics that were at their level were most successful. However, when I introduced what I believed to be an extremely easy political comic to this group of highly intellectual students,I heard many of these students say "Ms. Carter, I just don't GET it!". Some comics I used with my students include:
Next,in order to grab the attention of the boys in the classroom, I decided to give a lesson on the basic elemets of a sports story. One boy in particular, who is the sports guru of our class helped me with a lot of the terms and language involved in sports. In doing this, he became the star of the show.
Other articles my second graders learned about are the "feature story" and the typical "news story". As with the other forms of news writing, we first investigated the basic elements of these type of articles. We then used newspapers to find the key elements within the story.
There are a number of websites that aid in the development of a newspaper unit. Some websites I found to be particularly helpful in developing this newspaper unit are listed below. Some are mainly for teachers and others can be for both the teacher and student.
FOR TEACHERS:
FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS: