The World of News

The World of News

Dear students,

As you know, there are sections in newspapers to address readers'
penchant for different genres. Today we will discuss some of the
best-known newspaper articles

Types of newspaper articles

Remember - all writing tasks are about understanding genre, audience, purpose and style (GAPS). In newspapers we can find:

• News articles: these are found at the front of a newspaper. They inform readers about things that are happening in the world or in the local area.
• Feature articles: these explore news stories in more depth. They may be triggered by a story that has been in the news for a while. The purpose of a feature is not just to tell you what has happened, but to explore or analyse the reasons why.
• Editorials, columns and opinion pieces: these are pieces by 'personality' writers. They might be there to inform (because the writer's expert opinion is valued), or they might be there to entertain (because the writer has a comic or interesting way of describing everyday life).
• 
  

taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english/creativewriting
/commissionsrev2.shtml.

Today in the lab, you will see the parts of a news article and practice how to write headlines and lead paragraphs.

Types of News

There are two types of news in a newspaper.

Hard news: they are stories which combine the concepts of seriousness and timeliness. i.e. politics, economy, war, disasters, accidents, law, science, crimes, protests, technology, etc.

Soft news: they are usually timeless. It could appear any day without affecting its newsworthiness. i.e. travel  destinations, beauty and health, recipes, etc.

Parts of a Newspaper Article

            Writing a piece of news is different from writing short stories. The language used is different and the way it is organized also differs from any other type of writing. Click on the link below to have an idea of what a newspaper article consists of.

http://www.nytimes.com/

Choose an article that calls your attention and try to identify the following parts:

- Headline

- By-line

- Lead

- Body

Headlines

            The headline is the title of the news article. The headline should be short, does not include a lot of detail, and should catch the readers’ attentions. It is normally not a complete sentence, and tries to summarize the main idea or subject of the article. It is often printed in larger letters than the rest of the article, and the major words are capitalized. 

How to write a headline

Activity 1.

Write headlines for these news stories. Follow the rules presented above.

LEAD	YOUR HEADLINE
1.         A large wolf blew down two houses today, forcing the inhabitants of each house, two pig brothers, to take shelter with their elder brother, who fortunately lived in a brick house.
2.        Today Bonnie Walker became the first Canadian woman to hike to the North Pole.  She made the trip from her home in Reed Lake, Manitoba, in forty seven days.
3.         The last dinosaur died today of an overdose of peanuts in the zoo at a little stone-age town called Plains in the centre of North America.

Leads 

            The lead paragraph is found at the beginning of the news article. The lead briefly answers the questions “who”, “what”, “when”, “why”, “where”, and “how”. The ‘skeleton’ of the story can be found here.it also grabs the reader's attention with the news immediately (the hook).

Activity 2.

            Look at the following headlines and write their corresponding leads. You can organize your ideas using the table below

Headline:
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
How?