News Writing

ASNE lessons created for use with the News Writing Training Module

Day 1
News Writing lesson
News Writing PowerPoint – Day 1
News Writing Guided Writing – Day 1

Day 2
News Writing lesson
News Writing PowerPoint – Day 2
Inverted Pyramid Handout
Mini Evaluations
News Writing Guided Writing Day 2

Other ASNE lessons

• News Writing and Copy Editing
  A brief unit before story assignments are made covering the highlights of reporting, feature-writing, spot news, basic subject-verb-object style, quote attribution. A nuts-and-bolts unit to give a good floor for everyone.
• The Basics of Journalism: A Little Preview
  A basic, first-of-the-year lesson that asks students what journalism is and asks them write leads based on a list of topics.
• Courage, Risks and Accuracy in Reporting War Stories
  A plan exploring the history of journalism and the role of the war correspondent. Students construct a War Correspondent’s Notebook, an editorial and a commentary.
• News: Researching, Interviewing, Reporting and Writing
  A lesson that gets at the heart of reporting and writing an article and goes through all the steps of doing so.
• Fact-Finding Scavenger Hunt
  A scavenger hunt that asks students to use research materials properly — from almanacs to the Internet. Can be localized.
• Categorizing Quotes
  How do reporters choose the quotes they use? By choosing the ones that move the story forward and convey the most meaning. This lesson delves into that a bit and asks students to try it themselves.
• Bringing It All Together
  Use this exercise to wrap up Unit I of advanced journalism classes or the beginning journalism year class.
• Straight News
  A short lesson that asks students to look at an out-of-order news story and put it back in order. Comes with two worksheets on news judgment.
• Introduction to Paragraph Development in News Journalism
  A lesson to introduce students to paragraphs and their importance. Asks them to look at stories without paragraphs and with them to analyze the most important material. It reinforces the differences between journalistic writing and essay writing.
• Practice makes Perfect: An Exercise in News Writing
  A lesson that you can repeat as a staple of the class over and over again. It asks students to identify the key pieces of information in a story so as to better write their own stories.
• Precise Writing
  Teach students how to choose precise and accurate nouns, adjectives and verbs to create vivid writing.
• Revision Strategy: Using Math to Improve Writing
  Tracey Burger of Miami shares a short and sweet lesson to eliminate passive voice and “worthless words” from student writing.
• Learning from Award Winning News Writers
  Activities to study and learn how the best writers craft their stories.