Journalism Today

Chapter 6: Writing News Story Leads

Activity Lesson Plans

Introduction
In Chapter 6, students have learned about writing objective, clear, and creative news leads. In this lesson students will review concepts and terms related to writing news leads.

Lesson Description
Students will review writing news leads by completing a memory matching activity. When they click on a card, a term or its definition will appear. Students then attempt to find the matching card. When a match is found, the two matching cards are removed from the playing field.

Instructional Objectives

1. Students will recall the guidelines for writing good news leads.


2. Students will recall the various types of leads.

Student Web Activity Answers

1. lead: the most important paragraph of a news story, often the first paragraph


2. inverted pyramid: news story structure in which the main facts appear at the top of the article and less-significant facts follow until the end; can be easily edited because of this structure.


3. summary lead: provides the briefest possible overview of the major facts of the story in the first sentence


4. five W's and the H: elements included in nearly every news story


5. tease: coaxes readers into a story by encouraging them to read further to see what the lead really means


6. quote lead: should usually be avoided because its attribution is unclear


7. question lead: should generally be avoided because it provides little information


8. Associated Press: famous for its no-nonsense writing style

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