PBL Media Assignment

Enquiry question:
How can we make newspapers and magazines relevant to the
youth of the 21st century?

THE TASK

You will form groups of 6. Each group will have:
1 Editor
2 Journalists
2 Advertising staff
1 Photographer

Your team is to plan, research, create and publish either a print
newspaper or magazine OR and online news-site or e-zine. You are writing for a teenage audience
and your purpose is to encourage teenagers to engage with the news and the issues which affect
them. Finished products will be shown on the School English website and in the Library.

You will work on this each Tuesday this term, as well as spending other class time on it from
wk5 onwards.

This will be your major assignment this term. Marks will be given for your contribution to the team as
well as for the final product. The DUE DATE is Friday, 5/12/14, week 9.

METHODOLOGY

1. Discuss and assign roles in your team. Your teacher will explain the role and responsibilities
for each job.
2. Discuss the Enquiry question - How can we make newspapers and magazines relevant
to the youth of the 21st century? and list some suggestions on how you could make
your publication relevant to a modern, teenage audience. (Consider things like: What could
you include? How should it look? Which colours/fonts etc. would be appropriate? What could
be left out?)
3. Decide whether youll create a newspaper or magazine.
4. Decide whether this will be in print form or online. (Your teacher will help you find templates
and other resources to help create it.)
5. Discuss and decide on which programs and on-line resources youll use to create your text.
(Your teacher will help with this eg. Glogster, Word, Pages, Weebly etc.)
6. See how many people in your team can bring a laptop, iPad or similar to school while you
work on this. (Its hard to book enough time in the computer labs, so your own device is
helpful.)
7. Learn about Newspapers and Magazines over the first few weeks in class. These lessons will
help get you ready for your PBL.
8. Begin looking at real Newspapers and Magazines, both in print and online.
9. Each team must create a Cover/Front page, at least one Newspaper report, at least one
Feature Article, pictures/graphics to go with these, at least 4 ads and 2 or 3 other sections
(eg. Letters to the Editor, Reviews, Sports reports, Advice columns, Recipes, Fashion, comics
etc)
10. Any information or images you take from the internet must have the website at
the bottom.
11. Create, edit and check your text before printing or
publishing. For online sites, check with your teacher
about how to hand it in.

MARKING GUIDE

CRITERIA MARK COMMENTS
Layout suitability for
medium, audience and
purpose

/10
Content Quality and
creativity of the
required text-types and
sections included

/20
Structure and quality of
written texts and
links

/20
Suitability & quality of
graphics &
interactive elements

/20


Contribution to team
and final product


/10 ea
Overall, how well does
the text explore the
Enquiry question?
/10
Quality of research &
Bibliography/sources
/10


Total = /150


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