Newswise

NEWSWISE: Thinking through the News is a powerful educational resource. It is based on topical stories selected or adapted from the national press. There are two versions of Newswise for different ages and abilities. Primary schools can use it in the literacy hour. Secondary schools and colleges can use it in English, general studies and philosophy from Year 7 up to A Level. Newswise has a discussion forum for each edition where young people can share responses, further their enquiries and write for a wide audience - the Newswise community. There is also a forum for teachers, parents and students to ask questions about Newswise, say hello and share ideas. We recommend that you join the newswise mailing list if you intend using the materials.

The latest editions of the Newswise resources are available on subscription. However, there are extensive free materials which allow you to sample the service; these archive articles will provide resources for many excellent lessons in their own right.

Using Newswise for A Level English

A Level English students may be required to do one of more of the following depending on their exam board and their choice of questions and investigations. Here is how the senior version of Newswise can help.

• Writing well-argued essays on topical or controversial topics.
  Even when students succeed in writing for an audience and using a genre effectively, their writing often shows little depth of thought. Newswise encourages students to think more deeply about the concepts that lie behind news stories. It provides discussion plans and exercises to enable students to see other points of view and incorporate them in their writing. Newswise also provides an example of good writing every month. We believe that writing and discussion should work together and the Newswise forums proved further opportunities for written dialogue. If students get involved in a forum dialogue they might be able to save the text of the dialogue and use it as the basis for a piece of coursework.
• Re-presenting views or information taken from a collection of writing on a topic.
  Newswise provides guidance for further research on the topics covered in the monthly news stories. Students can use the their research and the original story as a starting point for their re-writing. The student or teacher can choose appropriate genres for the students to use as a model for their final presentation.
• Writing a summary and precis.
  A precis gives the general sense of an item; a summary lists the important points. Some exam boards ask students to summarise a passage in one of the exam papers. Others do not but the ability to summarise or precis pieces of writing is a useful one. Newswise articles can be used for summary and precis work and there are some exercises in the Newswise materials that guide students to summarise the main arguments.
• Getting feedback on their writing.
  Students can write short pieces for the newswise forum and get responses from the Newswise organisers as well as other teachers and students.
• Analysing the language features of texts, including register.
  Newswise articles can be used for this purpose. Every edition has an exercise called 'Headlines'. Students are given a list of possible headlines for the article and asked to choose the most appropriate one. They have to justify their choice based partly on their assessment of the article's register.

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