Truth is Stranger than Fiction Lesson One Understand

Truth is Stranger than Fiction Lesson One: Understand the typical underlying structure of news headlines and how it is effective. Understand how effective headlines can be created through unusual, striking, visual and dramatic combinations of words and images.

Which Headlines are real? Pilot Turns Back After Snake Pops out of Dashboard Killer Swan Blamed for Man’s Drowning NY Couple Weds in Shark Tank

Which Headlines are real? Alien Hedgehogs Spread Terror In The Hebrides Woman Gives Birth to Tortoise Mom calls 911 over son’s video-game habit

Which Headlines are real? All of them! Pilot Turns Back After Snake Pops out of Dashboard abc news Killer Swan Blamed for Man’s Drowning abc news NY Couple Weds in Shark Tank WLFI. com

Which Headlines are real? Alien Hedgehogs Spread Terror In The Hebrides The Times Woman Gives Birth to Tortoise Metro Newspaper Mom calls 911 over son’s video-game habit msnbc. com

Basic Structure of Headlines Killer Swan Blamed for Man’s Drowning Something Is / does in/at/to/for something NY Couple Weds in Shark Tank noun verb preposition noun

The STRANGE headline generator Adjective Noun Verb Preposition Noun Giant Goldfish Explodes In Shark Nightmare Tiny Police Officer Attacks During Monkey Blunder

Your Headlines 1. Do they follow the pattern? 2. If you have broken the pattern, why? 3. Which examples work well? 4. Why do you think they work? Think about: ¡ Clear ‘who’ and ‘what happened’ (noun / verbs) Strong / visual / dramatic adjectives Strong / visual / dramatic verbs Strange or shocking images ¡ ¡ Unusual combinations of words (e. g. strange adjective and noun combination)

Why are these effective? 1. Pilot Turns Back After Snake Pops out of Dashboard 2. Killer Swan Blamed for Man’s Drowning 3. NY Couple Weds in Shark Tank 4. Alien Hedgehogs Spread Terror In The Hebrides 5. Woman Gives Birth to Tortoise 6. Mom calls 911 over son’s video-game habit