Grade 6 Unit 2 Lesson 1

Learning objectives Agenda Key vocabulary Previous knowledge

Understand what “news” is and the different Reading: News and media event (n) First lesson so assume no previous
platforms to access the news Writing: Newspapers: Front incident (n) knowledge although in reality many
pages & headlines and Noun and national (adj) students will have some knowledge of
Understand the advantages and disadvantages of international (adj)
verb phrases different news types which you can
different news forms (TV, paper, online, etc.) to resign (v)
Speaking and Listening: What is draw on in the Introduction section.
triplets (plural n)
Explore common layouts of newspapers and the news? emotive (adj)
parts of a front page (headline, graphics, pun (n)
masthead, bylines, text, etc.) alliteration (n)
distinct (adj)
Timing Activities and description Differentiation (teacher to
complete)

1. 10m 2. 1. Agenda & vocabulary: The teacher introduces the topic to the class and discusses the learning objectives
and flow of lesson. Students also complete the vocabulary quiz, based upon a pre-released list of words.
Teacher then goes through the answers.
10m 2. Introduction to the unit & modern news: Give an introduction to what news is and discuss how news has
changed from historic to modern times. How do we get news today (in modern times)? Elicit answers from Ss
i.e. Radio, television, websites, newspapers

15m 3. Different forms of news and media & what is the news? Go to Activity 1- Part 1: Textbook pg. 32: The
students will decide which media types are suitable for which stories – students will need leading through the
idea that some stories are of interest on a national/international basis but some are only of interest to people
 in a local area. Go through answers as a class.
What is the news? Activity 1- Part 3: Ss are to write a sentence beginning with ‘News is…’, in which they
explain the kind of information we can get from newspapers, television news and news websites. Another
interesting point of conversation is to get the Ss thinking about ‘Who decides what is interesting, and how does
the media influence us?’
15m 4. Advantages and disadvantages of different news media: Activity 2- Part 1: Textbook pg. 33: Ss are to think
about and write down what the advantages and disadvantages are for different types of media: i.e. Televisions,
newspapers, news websites. Some points to help them are to think about: access, how much news is provided
and freedom to choose what to read about

15m 5. Matching media to audience- Activity 2- Part 2: Talk about how different forms of media are more suitable
for different people with different lifestyles, introduce the characters Chris and Carrie, Jemima, and Derek and
discuss their media preferences and how their lifestyles impact those preferences. There are various quiz
questions for the students to answer.

15m 6. Features of a newspaper- Textbook pg. 34- Activity 1: Go through the features of a newspaper on the
various slides such as: Masthead, puff, headline, image, strapline, byline and text. Ss will then complete Task
1a-f in the form of quiz questions. Students are to match the features with the quiz questions that follow.

20m 7. Headlines- Activity 2- Task 1: Ss are to look at the headline for the news story in the Daily Mirror and write
down two or more reasons to explain why they think the writer chose it. Elicit answers from class and reveal
the possible answers on the next slide.
Writing good headlines- Activity 2- Task 2: Go over some rules for effective headline writing. Go through these
with the students. There will be stylistic features that the students will be unfamiliar with, such as: pun and
alliteration. The slides that follow explain puns and alliteration and give examples for the students. Then, the
Ss should be able to look at various headlines and identify which rules the headlines follow. Elicit answers from
the students and reveal the answers on the next slides.
20m 8. Creating a headline- Activity 3- Textbook pg. 35: In this activity Ss will need to create a headline, trying to
follow the rules they’ve been studying for effective headlines. Before students do this activity, remind them of
some important points. They would have to create a headline using 5 words, then four words and eventually
should end up with a 3 worded headline. They will see a summary of a story, and a table with useful words for
building a headline. The summary will state: A school is so infested with rats, they are invading classrooms
during lessons and frightening students.
Remind the students that they don’t have to use the words in the table - if they can come up with their own.
After they have created their headlines, they should identify which of the rules for writing effective headlines
they have used and should write two or three sentences explaining how they have made their headline
effective.

10m 9. Sharpen your skills: Noun and verb phrases- Textbook pg. 33: First explain to the students what noun
phrases are, there is an example on the slide and in the textbook. Following that, the students must look at the
3 sentences then underline the noun phrases and circle the headwords.
Then, explain to the students what verb phrases are, there is an example on the slide and in the textbook.
Following that, the students must look at the 3 sentences then underline the verb phrases and circle the main
verbs.

5m 10. Plenary. Review lesson and complete monthly study plan & preview next lesson. Remind students about
post-lesson content: vocabulary task, content quiz, summary matching

Success criteria Homework/marked work Resources

Teacher can check students’ workbooks as they’re Vocabulary task Workbooks, Textbooks
doing the tasks and offer direct feedback.
Post-lesson tasks PPT presentation
AfL questions