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Citizenship at key stage 4 (Year 10-11)
Unit 08: Producing the news
Section 2: Going live
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Objectives |
| Children should learn: |
- to contribute to group decision-making
- to express, justify and defend their views
- to decide upon and implement a research strategy to investigate news items, and to analyse information from different sources, including ICT
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Activities |
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Outcomes |
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Children: |
- Set a broadcast time in advance of this activity, eg 45 minutes, one hour.
- In different groups of four or five, pupils work as a news team. They discuss and allocate different roles and responsibilities, eg newscaster, chief editor, sub-editors, researchers. They agree how to make group decisions, eg each member of the team has a vote, a selection of the team acts as an editorial board, what to include in their broadcast, how to ensure a balance of views, how to verify the accuracy of any information received, and how to put into practice the editorial guidelines developed in the first activity.
- The team reviews news items as they are received, either 'live' via e-mail from the local radio station or direct from pre-selected news websites. It is important that pupils have access to plenty of news items. The sub-editors use a word processor to edit the items to time (typically three words per spoken second) and to reflect the desired editorial slant, position or balance of views. Pupils can use the word processor's word count facility to help them.
- Give the groups a few more interesting news items in the final minutes before the broadcast deadline. Each broadcast should have a strict time limit, eg three minutes.
- Allow pupils the opportunity to unwind after the broadcasts. They discuss and reflect with others on how the activity went, and how they dealt with the late-arriving news items.
- This activity could be varied by providing different groups with a different political, religious or other point of view to represent, asking them to produce their news bulletins accordingly.
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- analyse a range of topical issues, problems and events from a variety of sources, including ICT
- produce a news bulletin that is exactly a certain number of minutes long
- recognise the importance of establishing and agreeing on a group decision-making process
- contribute to group decision-making and listen to the views of others
- reflect on their participation in the activity
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Points to note |
- Although pupils are working in groups, it should be clear what each individual's contribution is.
- Link with English: En1 3a, 3b, 3d, 3e, 9b, 9c, 10a, 10b; En2 1e, 4a, 4b, 4c, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d, 9b, 9c in the programme of study.
- If the suggested variation on this activity is used, it is important to give all groups the same 'raw material' at the outset.
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This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
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