Starter Kit for Middle School Newspaper, Part 1 (editable version included!)

Starting a middle school newspaper was a daunting task; I wasn’t quite sure where to begin! As with anything in teaching, I started by determining my goals, establishing what our writing/publishing procedure would look like, and choosing daily and weekly rhythms to move my journalism group in the right direction.

This template I came up with was essential for creating structure while giving students ownership over the process. I also created a Starter Kit for Middle School Newspaper, Part 2, which provides reporter guides and email etiquette lessons to use when students are requesting interviews.

What’s Included:

• Steps I took with my middle school newspaper students
• Helpful story ideas for students to use
• “Pitch Your Story” handout for students + mentor text
• Handout/practice on the “lead line” and creating a catchy title
• Handout for preparing for an interview + mentor text
• Short mini-lesson on interviewing - editable in Google Drive! Link included with purchase.
• Article outline/rough draft graphic organizer for reporting on an event
• Article outline/rough draft graphic organizer for reporting on a story + mentor text

All activities editable in Google as well - Link included with purchase!

As you dive deeper into the process and students start to write, check out this lesson on perspectives & point of view. Incorporating this lesson will help students explore how their perspective on a story impacts their writing AND the importance of gathering lots of information, even information that may conflict with their opinion, before drawing a conclusion.

This lesson: First Week of School Identity Mindmap & Classmate Interview would be a good resource too. Although it says "first week", truly you can use this at any time. This activity teaches students about Costa's Three Levels of questions. Then, they create interview questions for a partner and conduct the interview.

For more on having students create newspaper articles in class, check out these resources:

• Social Studies: Creating a newspaper article in any social studies unit
• ELA: Writing a newspaper article based on a literature or nonfiction text