Students will create a daily newspaper edition to show what they have learned about the politics and culture of an ancient civilization.
Explore the structural features of informational materials. Bring in examples of printed newspapers and magazines and then look at their online counterparts to see how the delivery medium affects the content.
As a class, brainstorm what makes an effective newspaper.
Catchy headlines? Bright ads? Compelling articles?
To promote media literacy skills and help students become more savvy media consumers, ask them to brainstorm how to attract readers and get them interested in their newspaper.
How can they effectively inform individuals about the news, events, and other ideas in their newspaper?
As a group, determine the creative direction for the newspaper and decide what type of articles, features, and ads to include. Then, develop a loose structure and complete a storyboard with information about the articles that need to be written.
Have each student contribute at least one article to the newspaper. Provide direction and share your expectations for the length and content of their articles.
Students can also create political cartoons or comics. Since these require high-level synthesis of cultural information and subtleties, this would certainly be appropriate for a separate project and worthy of an additional grade or credit.
While the major structural components were decided earlier, the look, feel, and navigation for the newspaper still need to be designed so that the entire project can have continuity. Have students revisit the storyboard and complete it with design elements and additional nontextual media.
To complete the design, assign roles of Editor-in-Chief, photographer, copy editor, and typesetter. These students will be responsible for maintaining vision, finding appropriate supporting images and videos, editing articles, and laying it all out in the newspaper.
When the newspaper is complete, you can print out individual pages. Use the Project Wizard feature to collect all the student work into one project and post on the school web site. This will transform the old-style newspaper into an online news site.
Have students read all of the articles in the paper, since they may have worked on a smaller part of the project. To help them further review the information, have small teams create dramatizations and present the story as a live newscast in your classroom