LITERACY TEST PREPARATIONNews Report

Long Writing Tasks

You will have two long writing tasks to complete on the literacy test 1) A News Report 2) A Series of Paragraphs

Today’s lesson will review how to write a News Report

Parts of a News Report Headline: the title of the article. made up of 10 words or less introduces the article's topic captures the readers' interest

Summary Lead: the opening paragraph. consists of 1-2 sentences is usually less than 30 words in length contains the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How (5Ws and H) of the article.

Fact-based Paragraphs: the rest of the article. short paragraphs that expand on the 5Ws and H is organized from most to least important information include quotations from key people involved in or related to the information in the article

Students Achieve 100%The staff and students of Brampton Centennial Secondary School celebrated yesterday after learning that 100% of their Grade 10 students who wrote the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) on March 27, 2014 passed the test.

The 400 students who wrote the test were informed of their successful results last week by mail, but the official whole-school results were released yesterday by EQAO, the Ministry organization that facilitates the administration of the provincial test.

"The students did an outstanding job," stated Ms. Whitmell, the principal of Brampton Centennial S.S. today in a brief phone interview, "I couldn't be more proud!"

When asked about the unprecedented successful results of her school's students, Whitmell revealed that the students had been prepared throughout the year for the April 11th test. "The students were invited to workshops, were offered resources, and were taught literacy skills cross-curricularly throughout the year."

Upon hearing the news of their high pass rate, the principal declared the last hour of yesterday's school day to be a time for celebration. Music was broadcast throughout the school's classroom LCD projectors.

"The preparation and excellent results shows the goal of our students: Honour and Excellence," Ms. Whitmell said with a smile.

News Report Writing Task: What do I need to do for this task?1. Write a news report based on a headline and picture that will be

provided to you.

2. Make up the facts and information (Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?)

3. Focus on the purpose and audience: to report on an event for the readers of a newspaper. The tone and language used should be “like a news report”.

4. Write only on the lined space provided

5. Use a quote somewhere in the article. Be sure to indicate who the quote is from.

Rough Notes

There is space for rough notes before you write your News Report

We recommend that you list: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? And Quote.....On the rough notes page and jot down your ideas and

facts for the news report Doing a rough draft with the above items will allow you to

cover all the key parts of a news report.

Let’s look at an example of how a writer organized their rough notes

Let’s take a look at how the rough notes are used to write the News Report Exemplar

created by C. Ma

On the literacy test you will be asked to write a news report. You will be given a picture and headline.

Let’s look at the example from last year’s test and brainstorm ideas to together…

Class Discussion: Brainstorm ideas for the News Report using the picture and headline.

Headline: “Student volunteers improve school grounds”

For example:

Who are they? What are they doing? Where are they? When? (Time of year) Why are they doing this? How ? Quotes…..

Writing the news report additional tips: Analyse the picture and Headline given to you to determine

the topic of the article

Identify who, what, where, when, why, and how and a quote for your article

Create an interesting Lead/Introduction that includes the who, what, where, when why and how very briefly

Write short paragraphs (2-3 sentences in length) to expand and explain the headline and picture

Add quotes to your paragraphs (by people involved in or related to your article’s topic). Use words like “said” or “says” before each quote

This is the rubric used to score your News Report

Sample student answer

This person scored10/60

Your task:

Write a News Report using the “Car was a success” headline and picture on the white ledger paper.

Be sure to use the rough notes area for planning.

When you are finished, used the rubric to self or peer assess your work.