Writing a newspaper article in Year 5!

This  term, we’ve started reading ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret’. We’ve been introduced to a boy called Hugo who creeps through the walls of a Railway station in Paris, 1931, and watches the owner of a toy booth stall, waiting for him to fall asleep. When the opportunity arises, Hugo attempts to steal a wind-up toy mouse but he is grabbed by the owner and only manages to escape because the Station Master is nowhere to be seen.

We have played the role of journalists this week, intent on finding out about the spate of thefts in and around ‘Rolando Garros’ Railway Station (we made up the name!) in recent weeks and we’ve decided to share our story with the world. First things first, in order to find out information for our story, we had to interview witnesses – people who frequent the station and those who work there. We invented potential witnesses and role played their interviews, generating some interesting viewpoints and perspectives. Everyone had the chance to role play their interviews in pairs and some us ‘performed’ our interviews for the class:

Once we had made our notes, analysed an example of a newspaper article and practised writing a section together, we were able to organise our ideas into an appropriate structure for a newspaper article and write our report!