Project: news stories

Last week, we started working on a new project in my 4º ESO class. In this project, the students have to research a journalistic style and report three news stories according to their chosen style.

Here you have the presentation I used in class:

First of all, the students got into groups, and before choosing a style, we discussed some common characteristics of each of them together. We discussed things such as bias, neutrality, focus, the importance given to personal commentary by the person reporting the news, the general tone, the role of the audience, and some other generalities. Then, each group chose a style and they started working on their scripts. 

Although I have given them three stories to report and examples of raw news to my students, I've actually given them the freedom to develop their stories as they like. In other words, they all have to talk about an oil spill, a new vaccine and a celeb becoming a mother, but the stories described by each group can differ. 

I am really excited about this project because, although we are working on fictional news, the students will gain a deeper understanding of the role of the media in news reporting, and hopefully, this will make my students a little more critical when they read or hear the news, by asking themselves the same questions we discussed at the beginning of the project: is this biased? What political agenda does it have, if any? Is this news or opinion? ... 

All the groups have decided to record a video, and one of them has asked to use Touchcast. As I write these lines, however, we're still at the script-writing stage of the project. I shall update again in a few days. 

Thanks for reading!