Year 6 Non-fiction Unit 2 – Journalistic writing

Teaching sequence phase 2

Listening, analysis and role-play (5 days)

Teaching content:

• Begin to explore radio news programmes in more depth. (As well as through conventional broadcast, these can now be accessed as streaming media from various news organisations' websites or via podcast services).
• While listening, demonstrate how to make notes for a particular focus. Provide children with a focus (summarising the main points in a report, language use, structure and style) before listening again and asking them to make their own notes.
• Through plenary sessions, discuss and improve the effectiveness of children's notes.
• In small groups, children investigate the style, content, presentation and running order of news programmes by listening to and comparing different examples. Ask: How are programmes structured to maintain the audience's interest? How does the content and order differ according to the intended audience?
• Introduce a news story, which will be the stimulus and focus for subsequent writing: this could be taken from real or imagined events, for example an event in a film or an event at school.
• Watch and re-watch a video news extract or engage with the stimulus for the news programme. While watching, encourage children to make notes on the five 'W' questions.
• Identify a character central to the event that will be reported and explore with children questions to ask this person during an interview (remembering the five 'W's).
• Invite children to try out their questions, working in pairs, in role as interviewer and interviewee. The interviewees improvise answers based on their knowledge of the situation and character.
• Share examples of interviews and discuss how asking the right questions affects the success of an interview. Record effective questions for use later in the sequence.
• Watch the extract again and widen understanding of characters' situations and feelings through the use of drama techniques to develop empathy and understanding. Use thought tracking to explore the emotions of a character and record these in reading journals or elsewhere.

Learning outcomes:

• Children can listen attentively to an aural news report and make notes for specific purposes.
• Children understand some key features of the way radio news programmes are structured and presented to inform and engage particular audiences.
• Children can use discussion and drama techniques to explore a particular event, incident or situation, and its protagonists.