Introduction
In this webquest you are going to produce a Sunday magazine supplement for a newspaper that recalls some of the important news events of 2021. The magazine is called ‘The Year 2021’.
Task
You are a team of reporters who need to produce a Sunday newspaper magazine supplement on important events from the year 2021, called ‘The Year 2021’.
To produce ‘The Year 2021’ magazine, you will work in groups of 3, and do the
following:
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Process
Process 1 – News stories from 2021
• Think back over the year 2021. What important things happened in the news?
Make a list of three important events that happened in 2021, and compare with a
partner. Have you chosen any of the same events?
• Work in groups of 3. Look at the BBC News site with archived stories from 2021.
You will see that stories on this website are divided into 3 main categories: News
Stories, Business Stories, and Sports Stories.
Your The Year 2021 magazine is going to have the following categories of news
stories:
• Politics
• Health
• Crime
• Space exploration
• Business
• Sport
• Choose two important news stories from the BBC News site for each of these
categories
Process 2 – News stories summaries to the editorial board
• Assign each of your group members a letter – Student A, Student B or Student C.
Prepare a short summary of each of the news stories you chose in Process 1:
Student A - politics, health
Student B - sport, space exploration
Student C - business, crime
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Tips for your summary:
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• You are going to present your news story summaries to the Editorial Board of your
newspaper. (The Editorial Board is another group in the class – you too will act as
the Editorial Board to another group.)
• Present your summaries to the Board, trying to use you own words rather than
directly reading your summaries. Remember to include your three key words in
your verbal summary.
• The Editorial Board will decide on which story is best of the two for each category,
and tell you their decision at the end of the presentations.
| Tips for the editorial board: • When deciding on the best story for each category, ask yourself: • Is the story newsworthy and interesting? • Is the summary clear, and is the language used accurate enough? • Are there any pictures presented with the summary and could they be used in the final magazine? • Once the presentation is over, ask a few extra questions about the story. • Overall, have you chosen a good range of stories for this group’s magazine? Think about the topics, and also the publication dates – do these articles offer a good overview of the year 2021? |
Process 3 – Producing ‘The Year 2021’ magazine: writing news stories
• You are now going to produce The Year 2021 magazine, with the one news story
(approved by the Editorial Board) for each of the categories:
• Politics
• Health
• Crime
• Space exploration
• Business
• Sport
• You may use your original summary as a basis for your final news story for your
categories, but you will need to include more details this time. Remember that you
can find out more by clicking on ‘Listen to the story’, or on ‘Read more about this
story’ at the bottom of the page. Try to use your own words as far as possible, and
include your three key words. Try to write about 200 to 250 words per article
• Read the articles written by the other members of your group. Give each other
feedback on:
• Content: Is the article clear? Do we know exactly what happened,
where, when and why?
• Structure: Does the article have clear paragraphs, and is it well-structured?
• Language: Is the use of English as correct as possible? Are the tenses
appropriate? Is there a good range of vocabulary? Are the three key
words included correctly?
• Rewrite and correct your own articles as needed.
• Decide on what photos or illustrations you would like to use, and where you would
like them to appear in the articles.
Process 4 – Producing ‘The Year 2021’ magazine: editing and reading
• As the editing team of ‘The Year 2021’ magazine, you now need to put your
separate articles together into one magazine. You will need to discuss the following
issues with your group:
• What will the cover of The Year 2021 magazine look like? What
photos/illustrations will you use?
• What order will you put the articles in?
• What ‘look’ will the articles have? Will they all have the same headline
font and style, the same layout, the same number of photos, or will each
article style be different? What size paper will you use?
• How will you put it together? Who will be responsible for printing and
binding?
Once you have decided on this, you need to work together to produce the 2004
magazine.
• Put all the magazines up around the class. Walk round and look at the others
groups’ magazines. Were there any images or articles that appeared in more than
one magazine?
Evaluation
Self-evaluation
It is now time to think about your work on this webquest. Fill in the following questionnaire, and give it to your teacher.
| Self-evaluation Questionnaire Name: 1. I found the group work easy / difficult because … 2. The next time I do group work I’d like to … 3. What did I learn about news events in 2021? … 4. What did I learn about producing a ‘magazine’ in English? … 5. My English improved /didn’t improve doing this project because … 6. What did I learn about using the Internet? |
Conclusion
As you can see, you are now capable of reading, writing and talking about News.
Try to do the tasks once more with to News of 2020, and practice them with your friends.