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Writing articles for 2nd grade

Additional Learning Objective(s):

Students will use the four language domains:
Listen. Students will listen to and record the comments of their peers in an interview.
Speak. Students will respond appropriately to the questions of their peers.
Read. Students will read a news article and answer the questions: who, what when, where, why, and how.
Write. Students will write a three paragraph news article.

Approximate Duration of the Lesson:

Greater than 120 Minutes

Materials and Equipment:

Several copies of the same newspaper
The Furry News: How To Write A Newspaper by Loreen Leedy or similar book explaining the newspaper publishing process
Index cards with one question word (who, what, when, where, why) on each
Chart of the Writing Process: Brainstorm, Organize, Draft, Revise, Edit, Publish
Copy of News Article Writing Project (attached) for each student
Copy of News Article Rubric (attached) for each student

Technology Resources Needed:

This lesson works best at the end of the year when students have lots of experiences to write about.

MOTIVATION or “hook” activity
1. Divide class into small groups and give each group a newspaper.
2. Discuss the sections of the newspaper and the types of stories found in each section.
3. Play a game in which groups search for specific sections, pictures, or headlines in the newspaper.
4. Review question words: who, what, when, where, why. Remind students that
• who- asks about a person
• what- asks about a thing
• when- asks about a time or date
• where- asks about a place
• why- asks for a reason
5. Have students form two lines and face each other. Give students in one line index cards with a question word on each. Students with index cards should ask the student across from them a question beginning with that word.

Writing articles for 2nd grade Remind them to look

The other student should answer the question. Have students rotate in the line to get a new partner. Give the other line index cards and have them ask questions. Continue rotating. (Tip: You may want to give students guidance with there questions by providing them a topic, such as newspapers, to ask about.)

PRESENTATION of new knowledge and/or skills
3. Read objectives.
4. Read The Furry News. a similar book, or the Scholastic Writing With Writers website.
5. Use the book/website to discuss the process of creating a newspaper and to introduce news vocabulary:
• Article: The stories in a newspaper.
• Nutgraph: The first paragraph in a news article. It tells who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• Interview: A meeting in which one person asks the other questions.
• Lead: The first sentence in a news article. It should get readers’ attention!
• Headline: The title of a news article.

PRACTICE/APPLICATION of new knowledge and/or skills
6. Tell students that they will be creating a newspaper and allow them to select a name.
7. Brainstorm and Organize (Model):
(Writing With Writers Step 2: Getting Started)
Brainstorm:
• Make a list of things that happened during the school year that students could write about. Select one idea for the whole class to write about together.
Organize:
• Have students help complete the question sheet in News Article Writing Project (attached) to organize the information about your article.

Writing articles for 2nd grade to conference with students regarding

• Introduce the idea of conducting an interview. Allow students to help write questions for the interview. Emphasize that the questions should not be yes or no questions.
• Model conducting the interview by asking individual students the questions the class created and recording their answers in the boxes.
8. Brainstorm and Organize (Individual):
• Assign each student or partners a topic and allow them to complete the question sheet and interview a peer for their topic.
9. Draft (Model):
(Writing With Writers Step 3: Writing Techniques)
• Model using the answers on the question sheet to write a nutgraph.
• Allow students to help write a lead and headline for the class story.
10. Draft (Individual):
• Have students write nutgraphs, leads, and headlines for their individual articles.
11. Draft 2 (Model):
• Model writing the entire article by copying the headline, lead, and nutgraph and adding a paragraph about the interview and a concluding or summary paragraph.
12. Draft 2 (Individual):
• Have students write their entire article.
13. Revise and Edit
(Writing With Writers Step 4: Headlines and Revisions)
• Have students use the revision sheet in the News Article Writing Project (attached) to make revisions to their work.
• Have students edit their work. Remind them to look for capital letters, punctuation, and spelling.
14. Publish
• Have students publish their articles at Scholastic.com Writing With Writers Step 5: Publish online .
• OR create a class newspaper using a desktop publisher program.
• OR create a newspaper using Printing Press .