Objective: To gather the main facts of the mystery story and, as a reporter, write a newspaper article that is based on the crime that took place in the story.
Materials: Notebook paper, pencil, a newspaper, any mystery book.
Procedure:
1. Begin with a discussion of where newspaper reporters get their information for the articles they write. Discuss how important it is that he/she gets all the facts right so that the article informs rather than misinforms the reader. Examine some short newspaper articles perhaps of some local events and have students pick out the facts of who what, where, when, why and how.
2. Introduce the five W questions plus the H question and discuss the direction each question takes.
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Who - the people involved
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What - the event itself that took place
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When - the time of day, year
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Where - the place where it occurred
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Why - the reason it happened
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How - the way it took place; the effect it had
3. Ask students to list and space each of these five questions on notebook paper and revisit the book in order to gather the facts of the crime. These facts can be written in note form (words and phrases).
4. After gathering all necessary facts, students are to compare notes with a partner to see if anything significant has been left out.
5. Students are then to write an article in paragraph form describing the crime that took place in all its detail.
6. The teacher will confer with each student to check that all the facts are included and are written in sentence form. Ask students to create a snappy title for their article typical of newspaper articles. Students could first examine some headlines of articles in a newspaper noting syntax and choice of words.
7. Students could then type out their final draft articles which could be displayed in a newspaper format for the rest of the class to read.
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--Adapted from an activity entitled "Newspaper Article" found in Morris and Berry's Mystery and Suspense. p. 53.