Literature | High school » The News Article Assignment

THE NEWS ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT You can do this assignment either at the start of the year (related to The Adventure of the Speckled Band) or at the end of the year (related to Romeo & Juliet). You should attempt to format your work so that visually it appears to be an article from a newspaper. For this purpose, you have to include: 1. a headline in large print above the article itself – if you wish, you could include the name of the fictitious newspaper on the line above, or anything else to make it seem authentic. 2. a picture to accompany the article – find a suitable one online (it doesn’t have to actually be a picture of what you describe in your article, but something that at least resembles it) or take a photo of yourself acting out a suitable scene. In addition, make sure you follow the advice on the handout “How to write a News Article”. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND You are a journalist who is sent over to Dr Roylott’s mansion to investigate the crimes he

committed and the detective work carried out by Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr Watson. You must describe the Roylott mansion and its surroundings, provide your readers with a little background as to Dr Roylott’s life and circumstances, and you should also include as part of your article a brief interview with Mr Holmes. Your work must be typed, but since it should have the appearance of a news article, it should be single spaced. It should be at least 250 words in length ROMEO & JULIET You are a journalist who is sent to report on the death of Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. You should include background information on the conflict between the two families, and describe the fighting and the rioting that has taken place recently on the city streets. Explain who Romeo & Juliet are, include brief interviews with Benvolio, Friar Lawrence (who maybe claims to know nothing?!), or any other characters you wish. Your work must be typed, but since it should have the

appearance of a news article, it should be single spaced. It should be at least 250 words in length HOW TO WRITE A NEWS ARTICLE As you may have noticed from reading news articles, a specific format must be followed when writing this type of text. The purpose of a news article is simply to convey the facts of an event in as objective a manner as possible. Here are some tips in order to structure your writing appropriately: 1) You must start with a headline. The headline shouldn’t be a summary of the article; instead it should serve the purpose of getting the reader’s attention. 2) Following the headline, the article itself should start with a “lead paragraph” which is the summary of the story. It should include the who, what, when, where and why of the story. 3) After the lead paragraph comes a more in-depth explanation of the story. Some details may not be as important as others, and you should try to arrange these in order of importance from greatest to least. Don’t feel

you need to include everything you know, but do include everything you feel is important. 4) If the average reader will be confused reading the story, fill in any gaps with background information. 5) Do not use the first person. Most importantly, your own personal opinion has no place in a news article. Make sure you remain objective 6) When possible, use quotes to give flavour to the article