Newsletter


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