Newspaper Study

Miss Gibbons’ fifth grade class became interested in creating a classroom newspaper. This idea sparked as we wrote paragraphs about our first week of school for our parents to read during Parent Information Night. 

Before creating our own classroom newspaper, we decided to research some questions we had about newspapers. We spent some time looking at The Columbus Dispatch. We explored how it was organized, the photographs that were included, the different sections, and what we liked and did not like about the Dispatch. 

Next, we brainstormed a list of questions and chose one to research. We used the Internet as a resource to find information that answered our research question. 

We researched the following questions: 

What is news?

What is journalism?

What is the history of newspapers?

What are the sections of a newspaper? Why are they important?

How are newspapers printed?

What is the purpose of a newspaper?

Why is the layout of a newspaper important?

What are the jobs of people who work for a newspaper? Explain the jobs in detail.

What are the five W’s of a news story?

After spending a few days gathering information and recording our information sources, we decided to share our learning. We chose to create a Keynote presentation or poster to share with others. We planned out how our poster and Keynote would look. We also decided what information we would include onto our poster and Keynotes. Next, we spent a day in the computer lab creating our Keynote presentations and text for the posters using Microsoft Word. We talked about the importance of displaying the information in an interesting way.

Once our Keynote presentations and posters were finished, we shared them with our classmates. Finally, we spent some time discussing the information we learned and reflected on how we can utilize the information when creating our own classroom newspaper.

The fifth grade students did an absolutely amazing job working on their newspaper research. They were very thoughtful in their research and how they chose to display their information. They did an excellent job sharing their information and presenting their research in front of their classmates. I can't wait to work with the students on utilizing their new knowledge and applying it to our classroom newspaper.