Let’s compare old and new newspapers! (LS-FI-106)
This learning scenario was created and implemented in a special education school with students from 13 to 15 years old. The class was composed of students having different learning difficulties. The main goal of this scenario was first to familiarize students with old newspapers. Then, they had to compare newspapers’ language, designs and structures with today’s newspapers. Besides these, students practised writing their own news and at the end, we created our class’ own newspaper.
Step 1: introducing news article structure and Europeana Collection
The learning scenario starts by checking online local daily news and by a discussion about different categories of news. After reading a couple of online news together, every student got his own newspaper. Then, they had to find an interesting news article. The students’ task is also to pick up important words from their own news and then try to explain them to others using their own words. The students try to tell what the news is about. At the same time, the other students try to find out the right news from the newspaper. After this, the teacher shows old news from the Europeana Collection and the students have time to read them and pick up the most interesting news.
Step 2: Creating their own newspaper
The focus is on the newspaper structure and on the creation of own news. Before writing their own news, the class talked about the importance of a news structure. Then, students got to know that news usually answers the next questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. After the theoretical part was introduced and showed on examples, every student started to work on their own news.
Each student wrote their own news article about school life in our own school.
Conclusion
The goals for the learning scenario were mostly achieved and the feedback from the students was positive. Pupils liked to mix academical and hands-on approaches together. From a teacher perspective, this scenario was good for students self esteems. Usually, most of them have difficulties to produce their own ideas and materials. The newspaper of the class was a great result, but the most important thing was the whole process where students worked together, shared information and learned as individuals and as a group.
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CC BY-SA 3.0 PL – The featured image used to illustrate this article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution. It can be found in the Europeana 1989 collection. The image has been resized and labelled to illustrate this article. To find the original image click here.