Modern Media Writing Class Advanced

Instructor: Joy Iris-Wilbanks

Daily Lesson Plan

Week 1
Date Step Contents
THURSDAY Introduction: What
will we do today?
Go over using modals and the grammar associated with it
Guessing the problem activity
Career Advice
Homework
Step 1: Review Giving
Advice by going over
the use of Modal Verbs:

Reading: Ss get the handout where they will read a paragraph that gives advice. (Do
as a class) (Discuss the modals they see and how they are used)
Grammar Presentation: (Handout pg. 255, 256 & grammar part on Pg.264 top ).
(Discuss with Ss the grammar point. They can refer to their previous Dear Abbey
articles to find these structures, highlight circle)

Step 2: Guess the
Problem Activity
Students get the handout where they will work in pairs.
One student chooses to give advice and the other to listen. The listening student looks
at the paper and tries to guess what the problem is. For example: (Giving advice Ss:
You might want to try going to events so you can meet new people. Also you need to
be outgoing and try to talk to new people Other student Oh it is You dont have any
friends)
They do this for a while making sure to use the different kinds of modals.
Step 3: Career Advice Tell students the scenario of being a career counselor on a school campus. That when
you go to college there is a counselor to help you do the right thing to reach your
career goals. For this activity students will pretend they are career counselors giving
advice and how to become a certain professional.
Ask: What is your dream job and pick one from the students and write this
profession on the board. Next: write the example prompts from the cards on the
board (You should, You must,, You could,, Its important to, Its a good idea
to,) Elicit from students answers to these questions such as (For example, You
should own some pets. You must learn how to take care of them, etc.)
Group work: Divide the class into pairs or 2 groups. Give each group a set of cards.
Students will complete the cards as a group.
Figure out: After Ss have completed group work they will then read out their cards
to the other groups WITHOUT saying what the job is. The other group must guess
what the job is and also comment on how well the advice is.
After: Have a follow up discussion about career advice, what kinds have they gotten
over the yearsdo you think you will need it in the future?
Homework Using the Dear John page students will give advice to all three problem prompts.
Rules: 1 response must be bad advice and 2 responses must be good advice
They should write their response on note paper and make them longer than 2 to 3
sentences trying to use the modal verbs from the beginning of the lesson.
They can start this in class if extra time.
























WEEK 2
T
U
E
S
D
A
Y

Introduction -
Greeting
Go over class outline
Collect HW
Think-Pair-Share: What is media? What are the different kinds of media? What topics can you find in the
news? (Ss write answers the Qs on their own paper, share with a partner, then share
with the class)
Headline analysis: Students see a handout with pictures of different headlines. We discuss the effect
these headlines have on the students. How do you feel? What confuses you? What do
you want to know more about
Effective headlines: Tell Ss that a good headline grabs the readers attention and
makes them want to read further or answer the W questions. Give the handout and
have students work in pairs to tick off the headlines they think are good and a cross
next to the ones they think are bad. Afterwards we can compare as a class.
News Writing Process
Activity
Collect pictures from the news that would be interesting enough to write something
about or that looks like there needs to be a lot of questions answered. Put these on
different spots on the floor. Ask students to get up and look at the pictures. When
they decide the picture they like, they should stay there and stand next to the picture
this forms their group. From here students will take the picture and go back to their
desks as a group.
Invention: each group now creates a news story around the picture by asking and
answering these questions in their group (What happened? Who is involved? Why
did it happen?) (They can use what they know if they know it or make it all up)
(But should use info from the picture) (Roles: Someone should be the writer in the
group taking down the information).
Create: After students answer all the questions they next create their small news
article. Using tape they will put the picture on a blank piece of paper. Next they
should create a headline and then write in the story they can write a very short
version of the story they created.
Show: These are then displayed on their tables and students will walk around and
take a look at them.
Discuss: Talk about any difficulties they had throughout the process and what more
information they would need to make a complete story, besides just having the
picture.
Homework Students will collect information about a current event happening in their home
country.
They will collect 2 articles from a news source, and an information page from
Wikipedia
Give students the HW handout so they know what to do.
WEDNESDAY
Introduction Go over todays outline
The Ws (and
How)
Introduction
Today we are going to talk about gathering information for creating a news story. Talk to students about this
topic and elicit what they think are some strategies.
Tell students that last week we created a short story from a picture. What questions did we answer to create
the story? They should be able to think of the Who, what, when, where and why parts. Write them on the
board.
Ask students what would be a good strategy to gather information to create a news story. Write their ideas
on the board.
Next: Tell students that you will give them a paper with information from a professional report at the BBC.
This reporter is going to share information on how to successfully gather information.
Give them the BBC News Report transcript paper and the Comprehension handout. Here they will read
the information and fill out the questions. (The matrix should ask them to answer questions such as: What
are the 5 Ws?) Give time for students to read the information and write the questions. Then go over the
answers with the students.
Practice the 5 Ws
seeing the
difference
Next students will practice understanding the difference between yes/no questions and ones that create
longer answers.
On the other side of the comprehension handout are the questions. Tell students that they will practice
asking and answering these questions with a partner. They are to notice the difference in the kinds of
answers based on the questions.
Next: Have Ss stop there and discuss what just happened. Which questions generated the best answers? Why
do you think that was? Closed questions often prompt the short response "Yes" or "No". Open questions are
usually preferred by journalists because they encourage people to give more information. Open questions
are also known as 'W' questions because they usually begin with What, Who, Where, When, Why - and How.
Practice: Have Ss think of their own topic to ask their partner, such as sports, movies life in America. They
should think of 5 W questions to ask and then they will practice asking. But they should try to get a lot of
information from their partner. They will use the same side of the handout to create questions and write
down answers.
After: Check with the students whether it was easy to ask each other the questions and whether they think
they were able to get as much info as possible.
How to Write a
News Report
Introduction
Next Students will learn about how to write a news report using the How to write a news report and an
Example article. (castaway)
Go through each part one by one while using the example article.
Start with the lead. Ask students to read this information then find where the lead would be in the
example article. Tell students to circle this information and then write lead next to it.
5 Ws. Next have students identify where in the example article is information about the 5 Ws. Who, What,
when, where etc. Have them circle and make sure to label it.
Quotation: have students find quotes if possible
Concluding sentence: have Ss find a concluding sentence and circle and label it.
Continue: If extra time, continue with the extra articles, having students find and discover the parts of the
article.
THURSDAY
Introduction Go over todays outline
Today they will write their news story
Any questions so far?
Practice
gathering
information from
HW Resources
Now students are going to take this knowledge and practice gathering information about the event they
researched as homework from Tuesday.
To do this students will interview each other. Both students will use the Gather Info. handout.
Student A will ask questions to Student B. Student B will use their own homework information to answer the
questions. Student A will need to gather as much information as possible from Student B. After some time
they will switch and Student B will ask Student A about their event. They both will use the handout to gather
the information and also use their notebooks.
This should take some time so give students enough time to complete it.
Writing the news
story
Organize: Now that students have gathered enough information they will write their own news story using
the How to write a news report outline from above, to organize their information
Write: they will practice writing it in class and should be given enough time to do this. They are allowed to
use their partners printed information if they get stuck but should rely on their notes. They can look back at
the examples to get a better understanding.
If they do not finish they can complete it as homework.
Homework Complete writing their news story. They are allowed to take home their partners information.



Week 3
MONDAY
Introduction Go over todays outline
Exchange Writing
for Editing
Once the students have written their reports ask them to exchange them with another student and give out
the News Report Checklist from the NewsReportWriting source (as above).
Here students will read over each others work and check off whether they feel the other persons paper met
these requirements.
Afterwards the teacher will have a short discussion about the assignment and the checklist to see how it
went with the students.
Hand in: Students will hand in their paper along with the checklist. The teacher will grade it on their own.
Introduction to
Food Review
Writing
Introduce todays lesson by asking students, Where do you like to go eat? Have a discussion about
restaurants they like to go eat and why. While they are talking write down their key points, food is good
prices are cheapetc. Try to get them to talk about more than just the food (What does the place look like?
How are the staff?...)
Next: Ask students if they can think of categories that belong to these topics on the board. Such as food
quality, dcor, atmosphere, price and service. They can identify others, but these are important.
Tell students that todays lesson is about writing restaurant reviews and being a food critic.
Examples of
Restaurant
Reviews
Handout the COPY of two restaurant reviews (copied and pasted to a paper from a newspaper). Students
will be prompted to read it silently in class, underlining words they dont understand.
Now briefly discuss the reviews: Was it positive? Negative? Would they eat there? Place students into
groups of three or four. Have them identify the various categories the review focuses on: food quality, dcor,
atmosphere, price, service. Allow one or two of the groups to share. They should all have the same basic
outlines.
Interviewing
Practice
Students are given note cards and are told to write down on each card one restaurant they have been to
locally. They should write down: The name of the restaurant & the kind of cuisine (America, Japanese,
Chinese).
Next students will work with a partner to practice interviewing.
Student A will hand Student B their notecards. Student B will ask Student A questions about the restaurant
they see on the card. They will write their answers on the back of the card.
Give out the Questions handout so students know what questions to ask: (Was it positive? Negative? Would
they eat there? Place students into groups of three or four. Have them identify the various categories the
review focuses on: food quality, dcor, atmosphere, price, service.)
Debrief: After students have done this they should make sure they switched and completed each others
turn. Then as a class we will discuss the findings and see if any students have been to the restaurants and
agree with each other. Students can present their peers review to the class as well.
If extra time: Students continue with new partners or try to write down more restaurants and keep going.
Finish Tell students that by Thurs they will need to go to a restaurant as homework and complete the following
information on the handout (based on the criteria). They will use this information to write their own
restaurant review on Thursday.
TUESDAY
Introduction Review the class objectives
Remind students about the restaurant visiting homework
Components of
restaurant
reviews
Tell students that todays lesson is to learn about the components of a restaurant review. To do this they will
put together a restaurant review by completing a puzzle.
Students are given the strips with the parts of a restaurant review (Atmosphere, menu, quality of service,
what makes it special or unique, history, conclusion)
Then they will work in pairs to put together cut up parts of a restaurant review. Trying to match the parts
in the right boxes.
Afterwards students are handed the real copy of the restaurant review and compare it with their own
puzzle.
At this time talk about the components and why they are important when reviewing a restaurant. (write on
the board).
Exploring
restaurant
reviews with
Yelp
Talk to students about how we can use todays technology to write reviews of the places we visit. Tell them
about the apps Yelp and Foursquare and how people can leave reviews with stars and information.
Guide: Have students download the app on their phone or using my iPad pass it around and have them
explore using the app. Tell them that you can search for any kind of food in your area and reviews will come
up. When you use those reviews you can see star ratings and what people said, along with photos. Have
students explore using the app.
Discuss Star ratings: Talk with students about the pros and cons of having star ratings.
Discuss whether you can trust the opinions of others: Since many people post their reviews can you trust
them?
How is Yelp different from a newspaper restaurant review: Discuss what might be the differences in
these two kinds of genres
Create Your Own
Yelp Review
Students will use their own phones or my iPad or maybe go to the writing center to do this.
They will use the handout on how to write a yelp review, following the steps. They will find a restaurant
they have been to and will write a review using the template. They should remember to use the components
they learned earlier.
After finishing this they post up their reviews around the classroom and students will walk around and take
a look. As students look at the reviews ask them if they seem helpful or not.
We will then discuss the process of writing a yelp review and whether or not they would choose to do this in
the future.
Reading about
giving Yelp
Review Tips
Now that students have some experience looking at Yelp and writing a review they will read about tips to
writing a good Yelp review.
Using the handout with the article, students will read together as a class. We will work together on finding
any words they dont understand and discuss the content as we go along.
Homework Remind students about going to a restaurant and collecting information to write their own review
WEDNESDAY
Introduction Today students are going to practice expressing their opinion. This will help them become more comfortable
writing their restaurant reviews and defending how they felt.
Go over the lesson goal and todays outline.
Giving an
Opinion
Introduction
On board make a chart: One column opinions, another why, when, effects
As students to talk about why we give opinions and write their answers in that column.
Go over when we give opinions, such as what kinds of situations or when you wouldnt give it.
Talk about the effects of giving opinions, does it change something or someone?
Agreeing or
Disagreeing
matching
exercise
Students work in pairs to complete the agreeing and disagreeing handout of the verbal boxing source.
Afterwards we discuss their results and compare with other students.
Practicing giving
opinion
statements and
reasons
Students will practice using the phrase I think that and giving reasons.
Prep: Cut up the paper for enough pairs to do the activity
On the board write an example of one of the strip papers (I think thatwatch / tv)
Explain that the phrase: I think that can be used to express an opinion about something. Then, elicit a
grammatically correct and true sentence from a student, e.g. I think that watching TV is entertaining. Tell the
students that each opinion must take the verb+ing form.
Ask a few students to give their own opinion about watching TV. Students can choose an answer a c or they
can create their own answer in d. Next, divide the class into pairs. Give one student cards 1 7 and the other
student cards 8 14. Ask them to create a fourth opinion (d) for each card.
When they have finished, tell the students put all the cards together, shuffle them, and place them face down
on a table. One student takes the top card and lays it on the table, so the other student can see. That student
then gives their opinion by making a true and grammatically correct sentence. The other student then gives
their opinion by making a complete sentence from the card.
Encourage the students to give reasons for their opinions and ask questions when possible.
Then, the other student turns over the next card and so on. This continues until all the cards have been
discussed.
This activity can also be done in groups of 3 or 4 and other expressions for giving opinions can be used.
Practice
expressing
whether you
strongly agree or
disagree
Students will hear opinions and use number cards to rank whether they agree or disagree
First students are told to write down their opinions on a piece of paper. The topic will be dating. They should
write something like, My boyfriend should be tall. Girls should be patient. Afterwards the teacher collects
the opinions.
Next the teacher hands out the number cards from the my opinion worksheet.
The teacher will read out the students opinions and students will raise up their number depending on how
much they agree or disagree.
During the exercise the teacher should ask those who agree strongly or disagree strongly why and to make
reasons for their opinions.
After finishing the students questions the teacher can use the questions from the my opinion handout
If there is timestudents can do the same exercise but as large groups. They will think of a topic, write
down their opinions then hand them into a reader. The readers reads them and the other Ss give their
number and they discuss as follows.
Active Opinions
activity
Around the classroom put the agree/disagree signs and explain the rules to the class.
Students will hear an opinion statement and will have to go to the sign that they agree with. Students who
end up in that corner discuss with each other why they chose it. Then students talk to those of the opposite
opinion to get an understanding of why they feel that way. After some time of this we move on to the next
statement and repeat the process. (four corners)
Homework Remind students they must have completed their homework by tomorrow and should be ready to write
their restaurant review in the next class.
THURSDAY
Introduction
Writing Students will use the information they gathered about the restaurant they visited and write a restaurant
review.
They can use any handouts and notes they collected from the week to help them.
They will use the outline handout so to be able to organize their ideas and write an essay. They will have
the whole class time for this.
Finish early If the whole class has finished early. Students exchange their writing and complete the checklist handout
seeing if they hit all the components and expressed opinions clearly.
Then the teacher collects and does an activity that might have been missed before
NO HOMEWORK No homework, unless they cant finish their writing



WEEK 4
MONDAY
Introduction Introduce todays outline and this weeks theme
Warm up On the board write, Interesting people tell interesting stories.
Ask students whether they agree or disagree with this statement and why.
Ask students, Do you think everyone has a story to tell?
How can use the media tool of interviews to discover a persons interesting story?
Ask, Have you heard of personality profiles? Tell students that this is a type of interview where the
reporter uses specific questions to ask another person about their life and what makes them interesting or
unique.
Reading (this will
take a lot of time)
To get an idea of personality profiles, students will read the handout of the sample personality profile.
Next help students with any words or phrases they didnt know.
Afterwards, they work with a partner to answer questions on a handout, identifying the certain features of a
personality profile.
Then as a class we go over the answers making sure to get to the last one so students can brainstorm what
kind of questions the interviewer would ask.
Why do
personality
profiles
Talk to the class about personality profiles. On the board write personality profiles. Then ask the class
what they think the purpose is of personality profiles. They should be able to say something like, shows who
a person is, talks about why someone is specialetc.
Get to the point that it helps you get to know someone better.
Ask students, How well do you think you know your friends here at ELS? Students might give various
answers.
To test this tell students that they are going to use the handout to write down 5 facts about themselves
(using prompts such as How many siblings do you have? I have 2..Do you have a boyfriend?...).
Then students will work with their partner to see if they know the 5 facts about the other person. They
should count how many they know to see if they get a high score or not.
After the exercise students can share what they learned and whether it shows that they knew a lot or a little
about the other person.
Outsider
preparation for
interviewing
their friend
Tell students that their final writing assignment will be to write a personality profile. They will pick one of
their friends at ELS. This can be someone in the class or outside the class.
Remind students about the personality profile story they read today and that it included opinions from other
people.
The first thing they will do is interview 2 other students about their friend.
If time: ask students what kinds of questions they think would be important to get the opinion about their
friend from other people / then give out the handout (below)
If no time: give the handout and have students look over the questions. Remind them of the task.
If week finishes on WEDS then DO IT NOW
Homework Students complete the gathering information opinions about their friend and should have it ready for the
final writing activity
TUESDAY
Introduction Remind students of the weeks objective
Go over todays outline
Discussing On the board write open ended questions and closed questions. This should be a review for them.
Ask students what the difference is between these questions.
Then ask students which ones are important for an interview.
USE THE MATERIALS THAT WASNT USED IN WEEK 2
Practice making
open-ended
questions
Students will practice making open-ended questions by using an object in their purse / bag / etc. They will
be asked to take out one object from their bag and put it on the desk.
They then have to generate 10 15 questions for their subject (pencil, eraseretc). (What its like being a
pencil? When were you made?) All questions must relate to their subject
Students then share with the class their interview questions and we judge whether or not they are open-
ended. Also may consider what the subject might say.
If Ss say a closed questions challenge the class to make it into an open ended question.
Create own
interview
questions for the
personality
profile
This will be the time for students to brainstorm what questions they will ask their friend to gather
information about their personality.
They will use the handout which has a list of target features the personality profile should hit. From this
they can generate questions (Ex: Persons background, persons special ability)
They should generate enough questions to have a good interview when it comes time. About 8 to 10.
After students generate their questions have other students check them for grammar and accuracy along
with whether they think they would be good questions.
Finally: tell students they will use these questions to interview their friend today as homework. They can
interview this person between classes or after school. They will write their profiles tomorrow.
Extra activity:
Interview
Practice
The whole class will participate in this.
Using the scenario cut outs students will be selected to be the witnesses. Those left sitting are going to be
the interviewers.
The witnesses each get a fact sheet cut out. And amongst them pick a role (teacher meets with these
students and helps them go through what to do).
ALSO the witnesses will add facts to the cut out about the scenario.
When this is done.On the board write name of the scenario and the names of the witnesses (false names)
Students sitting should ask a lot of questions to get an idea of what happened. Once all the facts have been
discovered students can switch roles and do the whole thing again.
Homework Interview their friend and gather the information
WEDNESDAY
Introduction Go over todays outline
Writing their
personality
profile
Students take out all their gathered information.
They can use the template to organize their information and write about their friend.
Students will have the whole class time to complete this.
When finished they should wait quietly.
If all the class finishes early have students pass their papers to a peer and have them go over the checklist
and give feedback
THURSDAY
Introduction Go over classs outline
Final rewriting Students can rewrite any of their papers from the session to get a better grade. They can rewrite the whole
thing or just paragraphs.
Students can look at each others paper and use the checklist to check each other.
Teacher should grade in class, however.
Extra Repeat or go over information that was learned doing previous exercises
Class reflection Discuss with students how the class went for them