The Daily Scoop

This lesson lesson plan can be adapted to meet various grade, ability, and technology levels.

Objectives:
1. The learner will use note-taking and summarizing skills to chronicle the events of the school day.
2. The learner will use complete sentences as well as adjectives and adverbs to describe events of the school day.
3. The learner will demonstrate awareness of audience using appropriate volume and clarity in speaking presentations.


Introduction:
The class will watch a newscast and students should identify and discuss what makes an interesting news story and the characteristics of what makes a good news anchor and/or reporter.

Lesson:

Each day, a different student is designated as the classroom reporter. I suggest that the teacher develops a calendar ahead of time, so students are aware of which day they will be reporting. Throughout the day, the student reporter should use note-taking skills to chronicle the events of the school day. A graphic organizer may be very helpful for this task. Either at the end of the day or for homework, the student should summarize the main events of the day, and should include adjectives and adverbs to make their descriptions colorful. Then, the student will use the summary to help them present a newscast of that day’s events. The newscast can be recorded by the student reporter (with the aid of a tripod), by another student, or by the teacher, depending on the abilities of the students/teacher. The newscast can then be uploaded to the classroom website. If this project is started at the beginning of the year, each student usually has a chance to be the reporter several times.

Closure:
Upon viewing the day’s newscast, the students and teacher can give constructive feedback to the reporter.

Assessment:
The teacher may develop a rubric to assess the student summary and newscast.