FRANKLIN COLLEGE

Education Department
Field School Lesson Plan

Name: Allison Groves Lesson Number: 2

Subject Area: English Grade Level: 7th

Date: April 12, 2017 Start time: 9:28, 11:09 End time: 11:03, 1:18

Cooperating Teachers
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Topic/Concept/Skill:
The sinking of the Titanic
Journalistic writing

Related Standard:
7.W.3.2 Write informative compositions in a variety of forms that establish and maintain
a style appropriate to purpose and audience.
7.RN.4.3 Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their
presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different
interpretations of facts.

Background: The students have spent the past week learning about the Titanic. Students
should know how the ship sank and that the ships sinking was a major historical moment.

Main Objective of Instruction: In order to be able to accurately recap a historical moment

based on evidence, TSWBAT interview another student and write an unbiased breaking news
article based on their interview responses and evidence from their text.

Teacher Materials/Resources:
Figurative language PowerPoint
How to write a breaking news article PowerPoint
Example newspapers
Example interview questions
Popsicle sticks with passengers names
Passenger research site: https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passenger-list/

Student Materials:
Chromebook
Titanic text
Passenger research site: https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passenger-list/

Anticipatory Set (Introductory Approach):

As students walk in there will be a fake news article on the board. Students should
complete their word of the day and then take a moment to consider the picture on the
board.
I will ask students if they have ever read a fake news article before and thought it was
real. Then, I will ask students why they thought the article was real.
o Were there specific characteristics that made the fake article believable? How did it
resemble a trustworthy newspaper or magazine?
Then, I will ask students if they think fake news was a problem back when the Titanic sunk.
5 minutes

Instructional Procedures (Whole Group):

 To transition into the lesson, I will ask students how people first learned about the ship
sinking.
o If there was no social media in 1912, then how did the public learn about the sinking
of the ship?
Newspapers
Then, I will tell the students that before social media existed journalists had the important
job of spreading news. Anytime an important event took place, journalists were expected
to write an article that would inform the public. They were also expected to accurately
communicate the information.
Because the ships sinking was so unexpected and newspapers were trying to quickly
publish stories telling the public what was happening, they tended to publish inaccurate
information.
Then, I will remind students that we know better than anybody how dangerous it can be
when newspapers publish incorrect stories and fake news stories are floating around the
internet. 5-10 minutes
Today, we are going to practice being news reporters in 1912.
First, I will ask students what they already know about news articles. The students
probably do not have a lot of experience with reading newspapers, therefore, I will provide
each student with a sample newspaper to look over first (probably use copies of The
Franklin).
The students will have around 2 minutes to look over the newspaper and talk with their
groups about what they see.
We will come together as a group and students will share characteristics that they noticed.
Then, I will tell students that we are going to learn how to write a proper news article.
I will pull up a PowerPoint that list key features of a news article.
The first feature is a headline. At this time, I will explain to students that the headline
needs to be exciting and grab the readers attention. I will tell students that figurative
language is a good way to catch a readers attention.
We will then review different types of figurative language that they can use in their
headlines. Students will have an example sentence to read first. With their partners, they
need to guess what type of figurative language is used in the sentence. Then, I will reveal
and explain the answer. 10-15 minutes
After going through each figurative language term, I will transition back to the news article
PowerPoint. I will explain each characteristic to the student and why it is important. I will
need to really stress how important it is to include accurate information and to be
unbiased. During this time, I will also demonstrate for students how to correctly include
quotes.
After going over each characteristic, I will give the students their assignment.
o Students will write a breaking news article about the ships sinking.

Each student will need a book with the Titanic text in it. They need to get their historical
information from the book (this will be their evidence).

Students will also need to grab a Chromebook.

One of the requirements for the assignment is to interview one passenger. I will have
popsicle sticks with real passengers names on them. I will draw sticks to randomly assign
each student a passenger to pretend to be.
After every student has a passenger they must quickly research that passenger.

Each student must use the same website to find their information:
https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-passenger-list/

Students have 5 minutes to research their passenger.

 Then, I will tell students that they all have to be reporters once. I will give students a list of
interview questions and they will have roughly 5 minutes to create at least three original
questions.

Next, I will split the students in half. One half of the room will be passengers and the other
half will be reporters. The reporters need to find one passenger to interview. Once all the
reporters have interviewed a passenger, we will switch roles. Students who were
passengers will become reporters and the students who were reporters will become
passengers. We will go through the interview process again. 10-15 minutes

Once all the interviews are done, we will begin the writing process. I will remind the
students of the key features of a good newspaper article. Then, we will quickly review the
assignment.

Students must write an accurate breaking news article using the information from their
text and their interviews. They need to include quotes from the passengers they
interviewed. Students also need to create an exciting headline using one type of figurative
language we reviewed earlier. Their articles should also include a picture with a caption.
Students will have the remainder of class to write their articles.

If students finish writing in class, they will trade articles with the people in their group.
Then, after reading another students article, they will talk about how different their
articles might be even though they all wrote about the same event.

Provisions for Individual and/or Group Differences:

ELL students: during the interview process, instead of writing out another passengers
answers the interviewer can have the interviewee write his/her responses.
If students finish their interviews early, they can interview another passenger and include
quotes from different passengers in their article.

Closure:
After students finish their articles, we will hopefully have time to discuss how none of their
articles are exactly the same. No two articles cover the same information in the same
exact way. Then, we will quickly touch on the importance of news articles and why they
need to be accurate and unbiased and what can happen if they are inaccurate.

Evaluation of Learning:
Students will be evaluated on:
o Including evidence/accurate information from the text.
o Creating an exciting headline that correctly uses figurative language
o Including 1 picture with a caption
o At least 100 words

Independent Practice:
If needed, students can finish their writing assignments for homework.