Newspapers and Reports (LS-MT-20)
Context
The goal of this project is to ultimately create a hand-made complete newspaper divided into sections (National, International, Sports, etc) with students’ drawings and students’ original articles. This project mainly embodies 3subjects, hence English Writing, Maltese Writing, and Expressive Arts. For the English Writing part, English newspapers (local and international) were used, in addition to newspaper cuttings from the Europeana website. For the Maltese Writing part, several cuttings of Maltese newspapers’ letters to the editor were utilized.
Step 1: Discussion
As part of the English Writing activity, we used this picture from the Europeana Collections, to raise a discussion on why newspapers are important, are bought and read in one’s society, and the differences between hard copy newspapers and online newspapers. One had to point out that one of the issues brought up by students was that online newspapers constantly update their news in contrast to hard copy newspapers. Furthermore, using real newspapers, students understood how a newspaper is divided into sections focusing mainly on local news, international news, letters to the editor, finance, and sports news.
Step 2: Producing a newspaper
Ultimately, students were challenged to pick a random headline from a newspaper and produce their own story in the form of a newspaper article, giving importance to the methodology of how a newspaper article is written and the section where this article should be feature. Important to point out that some even picked headlines from newspapers published in the Europeana website (e.g. item 1, item 2). .
As a component of the Maltese Writing, students were taught the responsibilities of a newspaper editor, and the reasons why people send letters to the editor (e.g. refutation). By reading letters to the editor from Maltese newspapers, students discussed if these complaints were justified or not. However, we focused also on the methodology of how a letter to a newspaper editor is made. Similar to what was done in the English activity, students presented their own version of the letter.
Step 3: Conclusion
Conclusively, as part of the Expressive Arts activity, all newspaper articles and letters to the editor were re-typed on Microsoft Word, using the correct methodology used when drafting a newspaper article or letter to the editor. Following the printing of the pages, each student drew and coloured a picture which according to him/her justified the article of that particular story. In conclusion, all pages of the newspaper, were bonded together forming a whole handmade newspaper.
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