Animal Rescue Magazine

Students will learn about issues surrounding animal shelters, visiting shelters, writing articles about animal ownership and care, and ultimately photographing adoptable animals in our local shelter in order to create a magazine from all they have written.

BackGround: Students should know the elements of a magazine- its front cover design, a typical letter that the editor would write to his/her readers, the "specials" a magazine would have- like puzzles or horoscopes, as well as how feature articles are formatted. This takes a lot of background work. I have a unit I have developed that can be incorporated into any subject area/topic and one activity in this unit involves a scavenger hunt for kids to investigate the basics of a magazine. Once kids know what components make up both a magazine and a feature article, editiorial, the specials pages, etc. then they are ready to progress to put the magazine together.
In addition, Students have been bringing in their pets and performing How-to speeches, learning about animal care through guest speakers, field trips as well as classroom investigation. Students have the knowledge and know-how- NOW they are ready to proceed.

The magazine should include:
- A front cover- with a picture and blurbs about what readers should expect inside. This should include color. Teacher laminates cover to make it more authentic looking as well as sturdier.
- A letter to the reader- explaining the purpose of your magazine, what you hope will be accomplished through it/what your read will get out of it, as well as hints as to what they will find inside your magazine.
- A feature article about a breed of dog/cat as well as how to care for it.
- An editorial concentrated on Being an informed pet owner- "know what you're getting yourself into" - audience- kids their age.
- Students choose three specials (horoscope, Dear Abbey/advice page, puzzle pages, etc.)
- Students write feature article about local animal shelter- needs and challenges after field trip.
- During field trip- students photograph 5 animals each and record the information about each. Back at school, students arrange their photos and information as captions into Microsoft Word in the form of a poster.
- Finally students are ready to compile their magazines. Teacher uses a book binding machine and plastic combs to assemble each magazine and they are displayed first in our school's library and later at our local public library- along with a few student-made posters advertising our "Animal Rescue Magazines"