Tales from the Desh

There are several in-class or homework activities that can improve a student’s ability to use a newspaper more effectively. Generally, these can be streamlined with summary-writing activities and are facilitated by students having actual copies of newspapers. Here are some examples of possible activities:

1) The instructor can choose two different types of articles (one feature and one news article, for example) and ask students locate the main idea in each.
2) Students can be divided into groups and assigned one article. The groups must first read only the headline, first paragraph and photo caption and write a main idea sentence. Then, students must read the entire article to see if their main idea sentence is correct.
3) The instructor can prepare a list of different parts of the newspaper and ask students to work in groups or pairs to locate them.
4) The instructor can provide an editorial and ask students to locate certain statements and grammatical structures that reveal it is an opinion piece.
5) The instructor can give assignments for which students are encouraged to explore a newspaper on their own and choose articles they find interesting. Students can then discuss their article with a classmate or submit a piece of writing on it (i.e. double-entry journals).
6) The instructor can bring in two articles from different newspapers on the same topic and ask students to compare the two as to the information that is presented as most important and their overall style and approach to the information.
7) The instructor can give an informal writing assignment in which students are asked to write a newspaper article of their own using a small amount of research (an interview with a classmate, for example).

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