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 2004. The magazine is called ‘The Year 2004’.
Task
You are a team of reporters who need to produce a Sunday newspaper magazine
supplement on important events from the year 2004, called ‘The Year 2004’.
To produce ‘The Year 2004’ magazine, you will work in groups of 3, and do the
following:
• From the BBC News Archives, choose two important news stories from 2004 for
each of these categories (group work):
• Politics
• Health
• Crime
• Space exploration
• Business
• Sport
• Present a short summary of your news stories to the newspaper Editorial Board.
They will help you decide on the most important story for each category (group
work).
• Write short articles about your final six news stories, and include graphics
(individual work).
• Edit and produce The Year 2004 magazine. Show your magazine to other groups
(group work).
• Do a questionnaire self-evaluation of your work (individual work).
Process
Process 1 – News stories from 2004
• Think back over the year 2004. What important things happened in the news?
Make a list of three important events that happened in 2004, 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 2004.
You will see that stories on this website are divided into 3 main categories: News
Stories, Business Stories, and Sports Stories.
Your The Year 2004 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. You can click on each story’s headline to read a bit more about it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/arch…
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
Tips for your summary:
• Your summary should be short – between 100 and 120 words.
• You may use graphics from the Internet to illustrate your summary.
• Include at least three of the key words listed at the bottom of your article. (You
can listen to these words to hear how they are pronounced).
• Include the date on which your news story was published.
• The Editorial Board is going to ask you extra questions about your news story -
make sure you know more than what you put in the summary.
• Practice your presentations a couple of times out loud with your group, trying
to make it as interesting as possible.
Useful language for your presentation:
This article is about …
One of the main events of 2004 was …
You’ll remember how in [March 2004] …
What happened was ….
We think this article is important because …
• 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 2004?
Process 3 – Producing ‘The Year 2004’ magazine: writing news stories
• You are now going to produce The Year 2004 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 wellstructured?
• 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 2004’ magazine: editing and reading
• As the editing team of ‘The Year 2004’ 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 2004 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
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 2004? …
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
However you decide to work with webquests, you should find that well-chosen and motivating topics, coupled with up-to-date websites and access to the wealth of material on the Internet will provide lively, interesting and learning-rich classes for you and your learners.
Credits
Teacher Page
Webquest: The year 2004 magazine teacher’s guide and evaluation
Topic: News and news stories
Aims:
The aims of this webquest are:
• To encourage learners to read authentic newspapers articles on the Internet
• To familiarise learners with the BBC Archives news site, and to encourage them
to return
• To encourage learners to use new vocabulary from these articles in their own
writing
• To practise article writing skills
• To practise oral presentation skills
• To encourage small collaborative group work
• To produce a tangible product (‘The Year 2004’ magazine) to show other
groups
Level: From upper-intermediate level.
• This webquest is especially suitable for exam preparation classes, where learners
need to be able to write brief newspaper articles, or summaries of new events, or to
do short oral presentations.
This webquest is based around the BBC Learning English News archive. The stories in
the archive are in both text and audio format. This webquest will involve learners in
reading and or listening to articles from the BBC News archives, orally presenting a
summary of two news articles each, writing two articles each and together producing a
magazine called ‘The Year 2004’.
Procedure
• Take a few example Sunday newspaper supplement magazines to class. Ask your
learners what they are, and if they read them. Which ones do they read?
• Explain to your learners that they are going to work in small groups of 3 people to
produce a Sunday supplement- type magazine, which will be called ‘The Year
2004’. The magazine will consist of a number of articles of important events from
2004. They will use the BBC News Archive website to find articles from 2004.
Process 1
• Put the learners in pairs for this activity.
Think back over the year 2004. What important things happened in the news?
Make a list of three important events that happened in 2004, and compare with a
partner. Have you chosen any of the same events?
• Put the learners in groups of 3, and direct them to the BBC News site archives for
2004.
Choose two important news stories from the BBC News site for each of these
categories. You can click on each story’s headline to read a bit more about it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/arch…
Process 2
• Assign each group members a letter: A, B or C, and ensure they understand that
they each need to choose two articles to go with the following categories:
Student A - politics, health
Student B - sport, space exploration
Student C - business, crime
• Encourage the learners to write a short summary in their own words, using at least
three key words from the bottom of the article.
• Learners are going to present their four news story summaries to an editorial board.
The editorial board is another group in the class. Give them plenty of time to first
write their short summaries, and then to practise giving their summaries verbally,
before presenting it the editorial board. The editorial board must approve one news
story per category.
Process 3
• Learners write one article of 200 to 250 words for each of their categories. Help
them with language as appropriate, and remind them that they can find out more by
clicking on ‘Listen to the story’, or on ‘Read more about this story’ at the bottom of
the article, and to include their three key words in each article.
• Encourage group members to give each other feedback on their articles.
• Help with rewriting and correcting.
• You may point your learners to photos or illustrations on the Internet which they can
use to illustrate their articles. Some suggestions are:
• Yahoo news photos:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index&cid=705&/
• News photos website: http://www.newsphotos.com.au/
• Reuters: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/photoalbum/?via=lnav
• Google images: http://images.google.com
• BBC photo library: http://www.bbcresearchcentral.com/photo.html
Process 4
• Learners need to edit and produce ‘The Year 2004’ magazine in the same groups
of 3.
• Put all the magazines around the class, and ask learners to look at the others
groups’ magazines. Conduct open class feedback on the magazines: Which
articles appeared in more than one magazine? What differences in style and layout
were there?
• You may decide to award a ‘Journalist’s Prize’ to each of the magazines, using
categories such as: The best illustrated; The most original layout and design; The
longest articles; The most colourful; etc. Ensure that each magazine receives a
‘prize’ for something!
Evaluation
Encourage learners to fill in the self-evaluation questionnaire, and take them in. You
can provide overall feedback on the questionnaires (what people felt they had learnt;
what was easiest/most difficult for the majority, etc) in a subsequent class.
Teacher’s Evaluation
You may use the following guidelines to evaluate each ‘The Year 2004’ magazine, and
to give your learners feedback and an overall mark. If you are using the webquest with
exam classes, you may decide to use the relevant Examining Board’s criteria.
| weak 1 | average 2 | good 3 | excellent 4 | |
| Summaries | Disorganised and difficult to follow; little data, few conclusions; intrusive errors of vocabulary and grammar; no photos or illustrations |
Clearly written, logically organised, including a representative range of facts and some conclusions; grammatical and lexical mistakes do not impede overall intelligibility, few or no photos or illustrations |
Carefully planned and checked text, including introduction; a good range of facts, and conclusions; logically linked and accurate in terms of grammar and lexis; good rage of vocabulary displayed;good photos or illustrations |
Engaging, original and well organised text, consisting of introduction, data (extensive) and conclusion. Few errors of grammar or vocabulary; consistent and appropriate style; photos or illustrations |
| Presentation | Presentation simply read aloud; not easy to follow, poorly illustrated, and/or under-rehearsed; questions not handled |
Presentation organised into stages, clearly illustrated and sufficiently detailed to give a general idea; evidence of rehearsal; some reading aloud, but some improvised “telling”; questions adequately |
Well organised presentation, with clear rationale, showing evidence of thorough research and rehearsal; attractively illustrated; some reading aloud, but some improvised “telling”; questions handled well |
Presentation presented in an engaging, even entertaining, way; technically impressive, well resourced; even distribution of work, each contribution harmoniously linked to make a coherent whole; report delivered with notes but not read aloud; questions handled effectively and spontaneously |
| Articles | Articles are confused and/or short and/or difficult to follow, poorly researched and/or minimally exemplified; intrusive errors of vocabulary and grammar and/or large chunks copied directly from website |
Articles are basic but sufficient to present main arguments; divided into clear sections and generally easy to follow; research not exhaustive but sufficient; grammatical and lexical mistakes do not impede overall intelligibility |
Articles are thorough and clearly laid out; research has gone beyond the most basic source and there is ample evidence of original writing; high level of accuracy and a broad lexical range |
Articles are exceptionally well argued, often committed, based on thorough research, clearly articulated and accurately expressed |
| The Year 2004 magazine |
Short, clumsily put together; inaccurate to the point of unintelligibility; work not well distributed between group members; little apparent liaison or collaboration, no illustrations or photos |
Sufficiently detailed, balanced appraisal, covering all main categories; evidence of sufficient group collaboration even if workload not evenly distributed; grammatical and lexical mistakes do not impede overall intelligibility; few but sufficient illustrations or photos |
Detailed, accurately and coherently written; all points covered and some in considerable depth; work well coordinated and evenly distributed; well illustrated |
Extremely insightful detailed and wellrounded account; balanced and informed; written in engaging, accurate and stylistically appropriate style; visually attractive and original |
| Total mark:___ |