Language Arts

Front Page:

Headlines – have students:

–Put headlines into alphabetical order

–Make a sentence out of the headline

–Create a birthday card for Mom

–Make a dictionary out of words in headlines that begin with the first letter of their first name/make a dictionary out of words in headlines that they aren’t familiar with

Play a game of “Down With Vowels”: Cut headlines out; white-out the vowels; make an overhead or handout of the headlines and have students tell what vowels are missing; read the headlines and tell what they mean. Example: B_sh s_ys: Th_r_’s t_x br__k.

Have students find:

–Stories about accidents. How could these accidents have been prevented? Students practice scanning, 5 W’s (just the facts), writing clearly, reading comprehension in this activity

–At least three different types of sentences (imperative, declarative, and interrogative)

–Words that:

            Have prefixes, suffixes

            Have plural endings

            Begin with a vowel

            Begin with a consonant

            Begin with a consonant blend

            End with –“er” or –“ing”

Have students read one article; ask questions to evaluate their reading comprehension; summarize the five W’s in one sentence.

Editorial and Op/Ed pages:

Note the difference in writing: opinion instead of facts only. Ask: What opinion is being stated by the editors in today’s editorial?

After looking at the political cartoon, have students write their opinion of what it is about.

Ask: What is the purpose of today’s editorial: to inform, to argue a point, to explain, to praise, entertain, defend or attack?

Have students write why they do or do not agree with the editorial or letter to the editor.

Entertainment pages:

Have the students write a review explaining why others should or should not see the movie.

Have students write a brief paragraph about each movie in the “Films for children” section.

Sports pages:

List all the sports mentioned and all not listed. Have the students divide the sports into at least three categories.

Have students:

–Alphabetize the sports that are mentioned.

–List all of the words used for “win” or “lose.”

–Find examples of:

            A straight news story

            A feature story

            A profile

            A personal column

Weather page:

Have students:

–Choose five cities; check the weather and draw what the weather looks like there.

–Write a sentence describing how different the weather is there instead of here.

–Write why they would like to visit the cities chosen. What would they see?

–Locate on a map of the USA three cities from the alphabetical list of cities each day. If you are studying foreign cities, use the international or world list.

Classifieds:

Lost and found: Have students pretend to be a lost article and tell how the item happened to get lost.

Have them:

–Write a home-for-sale brochure describing the many reasons their family should live in it.

–Choose an antique/collector’s item and describe its history.

–Choose a job and write a letter applying for the job.

–Write a job description for a job listed in the Help Wanted section.

–Write a “happy day” ad. How much will it cost?

Comics:

Have students:

–Cut cartoon strips apart and have them sequence them correctly (Sunday comics are good for older students).

–For young students, from two identical comic strips, cut the “balloons” out and have students match the bubbles.

–White out the speech bubbles and have students write their own conversation.

–Write their own story of the cartoon. If there is conversation, it should be in quotation marks, etc.

–Become a cartoon character and act out a cartoon

–Find vocabulary that they are not familiar with and add it to a private dictionary.

Miscellaneous:

Make a list of rhyming words:

–compound words

–synonyms

–antonyms

–homonyms

Make a list of abbreviations – FBI, IBM, AP. Next to the abbreviation, write the full name.

Ads: What words entice you to buy?

What words are propaganda?

What words inform?

Identify the adjectives in the ads. Have them list other adjectives that could have been used. How would the ad read without using adjectives?

Pictures:

It is said a picture is worth 1,000 words.

–Compute the size of a picture .The number of columns times the number of inches high equals the number of column inches.

–Count the number of words in a column inch.

–Compute how many words the picture is worth (column inches times number of words in the column inch).

–How many words are left?

What happened five minutes before the picture was taken? Five minutes after?

Write a cutline for the picture (who, what, when, where, why). Write a serious, funny and sad cutlines for the photo.

Collect a variety of expressions: Sadness, surprise, anger, happiness, etc.

After examining a photo clipped from the newspaper, write four descriptive words that tell what the photo is about.

Your teacher will describe a photo no one has seen. Draw what the teacher describes. Compare your picture with the real picture.

Make a collage of your community so that visitors would know what to look for while visiting.

Obituaries:

What information is provided in each obituary?

What information is missing that you would like to know? Why?

Write an obituary for a throwaway item, such as an old sock, a toilet paper roll, an empty soda bottle, a pair of jeans, etc.