Overview
This newsletter is designed to familiarize eighth grade students with
the process of creating all of the elements of a newsletter. They
will create a masthead including graphics, a section break, and a
footer with page numbers. They will input stored articles about
famous black Americans in which they insert photos with captions and
add finishing touches. They will learn how to create proper
headlines, stay within the guidelines of two or three pages, and
finally edit for any errors in their own writing.
Concepts
- Students learn to follow directions about creating a
newsletter.
- Students learn to use their own creativity to produce an
esthetically pleasing newsletter by using a variety of desktop
publishing techniques.
- Students will understand how to create a correctly organized
newspaper layout.
Indicators
- Students use text and graphics to create a newsletter.
- Students develop a masthead, section break, and footer with
page numbers.
- Students create headlines and captions to match photos.
- Students develop a final product that completely fills two or
three pages.
Precomputer
- Students study real newspaper layout of newspapers provided to
class with special attention to the following:
- Margins
- Masthead
- Alignment
- Headlines
- Graphics
- Photos
- Captions
- White space
- Lines and boxes
- Desktop publishing techniques are demonstrated via computer
and television in the classroom, so students know the basics
necessary to accomplish their tasks before they use the techniques
themselves.
- Prior to having students enter the computer lab to work on the
creation of the newsletters, the necessary articles and photos
about famous Afro-Americans need to be stored in each computer
that will be used.
***Check with the technical advisor at your school about how to
lock in the necessary articles and photos. It is extremely
important that the articles and photos be locked in the necessary
computers so that students cannot alter or change any of the
articles or photos.
On the computer
- Assign a computer and disk to each student.
- Student are provided with a set of directions to follow step
by step to create an esthetically pleasing newsletter.
- Students will save their on-going newsletters on the hard
drive and on their disks at periodic intervals and from day to day
while they are working on the project.
- Students will have access to the final grading sheet to check
off things that have been accomplished correctly.
- Students will print out their final newsletter copies and
submit them to the teacher for final evaluation.
Postcomputer
- Student disks will be stored in one location after the final
save and the final printed copy has been turned in to the
teacher.
Related Resources
Black History Quotations
Marian Anderson
Martin Luther King
Thurgood Marshall
Wilma Rudolph
Grade Sheet
Directions for Creating a New
Document
Newsletter example
Other:
ClarisWorks manual