Writing Feature Articles - Step 1 - Lesson 1 | Page 20

Writing Feature Articles - Lesson .
Using the chart below as a guide, conduct individual conferences. On the Conferring Log,
record what you ?nd, what you teach and the next steps for the students.
What you might ?nd:

Suggested Approaches:

Topic is beyond student’s familiarity
or knowledge

Reconnect with earlier work: Have student review his
or her brainstormed list of roles and expertise in order
to identify a topic that is more personally relevant or
appropriate.

Limited number of angles or angles
that are too broad

Prompt with questions: Guide students in developing
more and deeper angles by probing with questions such
as, “What questions might a reader want answered about
(topic)?” Students can then turn each question into a
statement. A second series of questions might then be
asked about the statements until ideas are more speci?c
and unique.
Use another modality: Have student work with a peer to
ask each other the prompting question in order to get to
possible angles on the topic.

Ready for more

Provide extension: Students can browse print magazines
in the school library or the mentor texts in Prof. P’s Of?ce
for more examples of feature articles with interesting
angles. Direct student to the Online Classroom to try the
Study Center activity What’s Your Angle?

Sharing and Lesson Summary (5 min)
Reconvene the class. Ask students to share their feature article topics and potential angles with a
classmate. Students can ask one another questions that might be helpful in clarifying what they have
developed in this lesson.
.

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