How Can Newspapers Develop Students' Writing Skills?
- Like any high-level written material, newspapers introduce students to new vocabulary words, which they can learn by studying the words' context or looking them up. Unlike many other materials, though, newspapers place the words in a modern context. The words in newspapers are words still used -- and useful-- today, in general culture. Newspapers also contain a wide breadth of vocabulary since they contain articles on many different subjects, from politics and economics to parenting, sports, travel and the arts.
- Reading provides students with good models of excellent writing. When reading newspapers, students are exposed to a variety of sentence structures and lengths, which they can then incorporate into their own papers. Newspapers also expose students to Standard Written English and help reinforce students' habits of using correct grammar and punctuation. Some newspapers additionally carry articles about language itself -- especially new words, such as those related to the Internet -- which can help students think more deeply about their own use of words and the connotations and origins of those words.
- Most reading assignments in middle- and high-school are narratives -- that is, stories. However, students are not usually asked to write their own stories but rather to produce expository papers, ones that report information, explain or describe something or argue their opinions. Newspaper articles are excellent models for expository writing. By reading newspapers, students learn how to structure short news items, longer features, personal essays and opinion pieces. They see models of putting the most important information first and including a thesis statement. They also study models of writing objectively -- for example, writing a research report without including one's own opinions on the subject.
- Since newspapers carry stories on a wide variety of subjects, by reading them students can acquire a wide breadth of knowledge of the world. Newspapers increase readers' points of reference. A student who knows more about world cultures, social phenomena, political issues and human interest stories is a student who can include more metaphors in her writing and more ways of explaining ideas.
