Developing Writing Skills

Writing reports and advertisements (a)The news broadcast

• Stage 1 The teacher asks all the students in the class to write two news items on a piece of paper.
• Stage 2 The teacher then collects all the pieces of paper and forms the class into small groups.
• Stage 3 The teacher then distributes the pieces of paper equally between the groups in no special order. The students are asked to combine the items to make up a complete news broadcast.
• Stage 4 Each group then reads its broadcast to the rest of the class. Ideally, of course, each group could record their broadcast to make it more realistic.

Writing reports and advertisements (b)The advertisement

• Stage 1 The class discusses what makes a successful advertisement.
• Stage 2 The class is divided into groups. They are told that their task is to select a product and write an advertisement for it which will appear in a magazine.
• Stage 3 When they have completed their advertisements they can pass them round the class. Alternatively they can be given a period of time to design the artwork for their text. The advertisements can then be pinned to the class notice board.