The Feature Story Icebreaker
Grade Levels: 5 - 8
Objectives
- Students will interview a classmate and write a journalism-style feature story about them.
Procedures
- Discuss the structure of a basic news story using real samples from a newspaper or magazine.
- Use the Basic Journalism handout to introduce basic journalism principles and discuss the news story process from beginning to end. This can be simple or complex, but should include coverage of headlines, story leads, and general tone of a news story.
- A more involved thematic unit might include research, fact-checking, interviewing skills, rewriting, copyediting, and layout.
- Students interview a partner using the Interview Questionnaire handout.
- When students are finished writing the story, have them take a picture and lay it out in the style of a newspaper article.
- Variation: For a more challenging activity, use a word processing or desktop publishing program and a scanner or digital camera to create professional-quality news stories. This project makes a perfect Back-to-School Night bulletin board!
