Feature Writing as Summary

There are a hundred ways I could use the newspaper feature on www.fodey.com, but one of my favorites is the idea to have students respond to a chapter by writing a news article over it. I think it is great because it adds a creative aspect to retelling events. For my 8th graders, I would require that the headline needs to hint at a thematic issue or message.

I love how the website (1) lengthens the page so the end product can be short or long, (2) creates a downloadable image file that can be easily uploaded to Edmodo, Padlet, or incorporated into an appsmash, and (3) super authentic! It looks like the ink print from other newspapers has been left on it. This could create some really cool "historical" documents. I used to do a research project where students wrote diary entries from fictional or real characters in WWII. Wouldn't it be neat to have the end product of a research project like that be a fictional online archive?

For my example, I used The Outsiders. I had to research where the country may have been that the boys ran off to and what a viable date would be for the book, including the day of the week for that date. I had to imagine quotations from characters that seemed authentic to what we know about those characters.

Directions:
1. Think of what event happened in the book/chapter/story that would be front page worthy
2. Use the newspaper function on www.fodey.com (make sure to pause add blocker if you have that on your computer) to write a newspaper article that reveals the events
3. Use a maps website to come up with an accurate name for the newspaper and locations
4. Research the day of the week for an accurate date
5. Make sure your headline acknowledges a thematic component
6. In your summary, include a quotation from a character. This quotation should not be dialogue lifted from the text, but rather dialogue you create based on what you know about the characters and who a reporter would interview about this event