Writing news Learning objective to understand the structure

Writing news Learning objective: • to understand the structure of a news story remembering the three Cs – clear, concise, correct

Discuss what these words might mean Starter clear concis e ct e r r co

Key points? The 3 Cs : Clear: Write it how you would say it. Get straight to the point at the beginning. Concise: Don't waffle. Keep your sentences - and the length of your report - short. Correct: Get your facts, spelling and grammar right.

Newsreader Huw Edwards talks about writing What does he say about the structure of a news story? BBC video: writing the news

What else should you remember about writing? • Ask yourself - What is the main point of this story? • If you’re not sure, tell it to a friend – what’s the first thing you say to them? • Pick out the best answers from a long interview. • Plan an ending – what final thought do you want to leave audience with? • For TV or radio, you need to write a script that will be read aloud - possibly alongside pictures or audio clips. • If you’re writing a text-based story, think about how photos might work alongside it.

BBC reporter shows you how he writes a script BBC video: Top tips on script-writing

Activity: in pairs put the paragraphs in the correct order

Here is the original Newsround article

Activity: put these pictures in the correct order. A B C D

Here’s the correct order. What’s the story? D-1 B-3 A-2 C-4 CBBC Newsround - Artwork that lets you be Spiderman

Now write your own script to match the pictures! D-1 B-3 A-2 C-4

Activity: You are a journalist! • Find a story in a newspaper, magazine or other reliable source and try to tell the whole story in four paragraphs - that’s about 80 words. • What kind of information do you have to cut out? What do you notice about the language you use? • Be ready to read it out to the class.