Handbook for Journalism_ENGLISH

PROJECT NUMBER:
2019-1-NO01-KA201-060268




JOURNALISM
AS LEARNING
TOOL

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an
endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission
cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

About the Project ........................................................................1

UNIT 1

Definitions ...........................................................................3
1.1 Critical Thinking (CT) ..................................................3
1.2 Media Literacy ..............................................................5
1.3 Intercultural Learning .................................................7

UNIT 2

WeNewz ................................................................................8

2.1 About the Platform .....................................................8
2.2 How can it be used in a

classroom situation? ..................................................9
2.3 Some tips ...................................................................11

UNIT 3

School Activities ..................................................................13

3.1 School newspaper ....................................................14
3.2 Introducing fake news at school ............................17
3.3 Sessions with famous journalists

in schools ..................................................................18
3.4 Journalism club activities to

improve journalism as a learning tool:
Team Research for e-News .....................................19

UNIT 4

Classroom Activities ...........................................................21
4.1 Small public speaking in class -
the basics of building and
receiving informative messages ............................22
4.2 Follow the instructions ...........................................26
4.3 Students' interviews with each
other ..........................................................................27
4.4 Classroom debates ...................................................28

CONCLUSIONS

Authors' Report ..................................................................31

INTRODUCTION

About the Project

The project “Journalism as Learning Tool”, together
with this handbook, intends to present innovative
ways of dealing with these challenges, by giving
teachers and schools the opportunity to approach
journalism as an educational tool and methodology.

In this way, educators in schools will be able to train
students on media literacy, critical thinking, and
cultural learning as well as raise awareness among
youth about civic engagement and public debate.
The teachers, as members and main staff of this
project partnership, explored and investigated these
innovative tools directly with their students, thus
ensuring a first-hand perspective on the use of
journalism as a learning tool in the classrooms.

This methodology allowed students to enhance their
ICT skills as well as their ability to approach media
in a more critical and analytical way, enabling them
to better assess the ever-increasing flow of
information they are exposed to.

The following Handbook serves as a guide for
teachers and school educators who want to teach
about disinformation and misinformation but also to
stimulate their critical thinking, develop ethics in
information, increase their active participation in
society, and express themselves.

1

The Handbook contains relevant information on
teaching principles and methods through the use of
journalism as well as a collection of activities that
teachers can implement in class with their students
to promote media literacy, critical thinking, and
cultural learning, among others.
The project has developed a wide range of methods
for schools to easily implement in their daily
activities. In addition, the publishing platform
www.wenewz.com is developed to give schools and
teachers a free platform to support their teaching.
The complete overview of school activities and
classroom activities is available from the project
website https://jlt-project.eu/

2

UNIT 1 - DEFINITIONS

1.1 Critical Thinking (CT)

One of the important skills needed by modern man is critical thinking (CT).
There are many definitions of it, but what they have in common is that it is
thinking characterized by independence, argumentation, and the ability to
subject each new fact to critical scrutiny and to make adequate decisions.
Critical thinking allows already learned ideas and facts to be tested,
evaluated and applied.
Critical thinking consists of looking closely at the meaning of ideas, treating
them with moderate scepticism, balancing conflicting views, building systems
of supporting opinions for argumentation, and taking a firm stand based on
this scheme.

CT is a complex process of creative unification of ideas and means,
application of a new concept and new structuring of concepts and facts.
CT is an active and interactive cognitive process that takes place
simultaneously on many levels. In most cases, the CM pursues a goal,
but it can also be a creative process whose goals are not clearly
defined.

3

CT is a complex thought process that begins with information and ends
with decision making.
CT is possible at all ages.

4

1.2 Media Literacy

Media literacy is defined as the ability to find, evaluate, use and produce
truthful information in the abundance of media and digital sources and skills
for effective and constructive interaction with other people in the online
environment.
At the same time, there is a lack of adequate curricula for developing key
skills for "survival" in the information ocean in which we place our children,
such as critical thinking, recognition of false information, protection of
personal data; reaction to harassment, etc.
Media literacy helps students to:

Develop critical thinking skills that are useful to them in both the
virtual and real world.
Understand how media messages are formed and what their various
goals are.
Recognize misinformation and false suggestions.

5

Take advantage of the wealth of information to learn, educate and
develop.
Protect themselves from online abuse and harassment.
Become a full participant, not just a consumer in the modern
information and media environment.
Express positions on various issues that affect them.

6

1.3 Intercultural Learning

Intercultural education in schools is to ensure that all students have equal
participation, regardless of their cultural background, and that they have the
opportunity to achieve the highest possible level of education. The school
must see itself as a place of learning for every student and cultivate a culture
of intercultural dialogue so that all students feel part of the school
community.
In the classroom, intercultural education can encourage consideration of the
topic from the perspective of majorities and minorities. This allows students
to change their points of view.
The school should consider the linguistic diversity of different nations and,
at best, encourage multilingual students.
Students' multilingualism can be reflected in the rooms and in public
relations work. In addition, the school may participate in intercultural and
interreligious cooperation with institutions or schools in other countries.

7

UNIT 2 - WENEWZ

2.1 About the Platform

In order to train students to improve their written communication,
critical thinking, media literacy, intercultural and other learning

objectives, schools need a
common platform to work on.

WeNewz (www.wenewz.com) is
made for teachers and students
and it is free to use. The platform is suitable both for PC, tablets and
mobile phones.

On mobile phones, you can save it as an app.

WeNewz is like an online newspaper, where
logged-in students and teachers can create
and post articles.
It is possible to tag the article, both with
geographical tags and topic tags as well as
to comment on the article.

The platform has a search option, to help
find articles. You can search for keywords or
tags.

In your admin panel, you can choose the
language of the platform, create articles and
realize your own private front page based
on your preferable tags.

8

2.2 How can it be used in a classroom
situation?

Only the teacher's fantasy set the limitations for how WeNewz can be
used in the students' learning processes.

For your inspiration, we recommend some ways.

Students write articles to learn how to
express themselves.
Give students the same topic, to see the
different approaches students can have to
communicate their views.
Students review other students’ articles.
Write articles to challenge critical
thinking skills.
Write articles to learn media literacy.
Helps students to understand what
informative media is for society.
Start more consciously constructing their
own media.
Power of Journalism for students to
change the World.

9

Journalism as a way of self-expression.
Journalism as a path to social activism and involvement in
democracy.
Raise awareness of the link between technology and
Journalism.
Focusing on ethics and responsibility of Journalism.
Learn fact-checking.
Receiving criticism (and prevention of online bullying).
Transition from Student Journalism to Citizen Journalism.

10

2.3 Some tips

Master the fundamentals

First focus on good grammar, punctuation, and style. A journalist’s skills
must be impeccable. Later focus may be raised towards analysing the text
structure.

Master the tools

Journalists today work in a range of media. From databases to interactive
graphics, video to slide shows. There are way too many tools available
for one person to become an expert at everything. Students need a
working knowledge of their capabilities, understand their personal
strengths and work to develop other skills.
Since there are many areas of expertise, teachers can organize groups
with different competencies among students to develop more complex
stories.

11

Develop research skills

Most people who aspire toward journalism careers are insatiably curious,
so taking those observation skills to the next level usually is easy.
Research skills are useful in all subjects at school and will also help
students to speed quickly when time is of the essence. Once the students
have practised for a while, noticing details and researching will become
second nature.

Start at a small age

Working with tools like WeNewz can start at an early age.

Use WeNewz to develop the joy of
writing and expressing themselves in
written ways.
Make it fun, give small and easy
tasks which students master and
later introduce more complexity.

12

UNIT 3 - SCHOOL
ACTIVITIES

School activities are activities outside the classroom,
engaging more people than the teachers and students in a
class. Working with journalism topics as a school activity can
be useful both to engage more teachers and students at the
same time, raise awareness at school for specific topics, be
economic and bring in a wider range of competence for the
students.

For a full overview of several activities, visit the journalism
website https://jlt-project.eu/

In the following Unit, 4 examples of activities will be extensively
described with a step-by-step guide for each of them.

Specifically, the following will be presented:

School Newspaper
Introducing fake news at school
Sessions with famous journalists in schools
Journalism club activities to improve
journalism as a learning tool: Team
Research for e-News

13

3.1 School newspaper

Target Age 14 - 18 years old

Required resources Computers, pen and notebook,
camera, smartphone

Environment Classroom or Media Library

Purpose Students will understand their
relationship with the media; to be
aware of the interaction between
media, technology and education;
to understand how to use media
literacy tools in their daily routines.

Preparation and creation of content for the monthly edition of the
newspaper

1- Discuss past events related to school life and set rules for work.
Recall basic rules related to:

- how we create media content
- copyright
- freedom of speech
- how to avoid hate speech

2- Set topics for writing articles and conducting interviews. Distribution
of tasks among students.

3- Selection of information. The guidelines are related to the
development of basic skills such as communication, teamwork, emotional
literacy, working in an online environment, etc.
We guide them on how the article/interview/news they create should
answer 5 main questions (5 "W's") Who? What? When? Where? How?
Why?.

14

# Key words Deconstruction: CLM’s 5 Core Constrution: CML’s 5 Key
CLM’s 5 Key Concepts Questions (Producer)

1 Authorship Who created this All media What am I authoring?
message messages are
constructed

Media

2 Format What creative messages are Does my message reflect
techniques are used constructed understanding format,
creativity and
to attract my using a technology?
attention creative
language with

its own rules

3 Audience How might people Different Is my message engaging
understand this people and compelling for my
message experience
differently? same media target audience?
message
differently.

What values, Have I clearly and
consistently framed
lifestyle and points Media have values, lifestyle and
points of view in my
4 Content of view are embedded
represented in or values and content?

omitted from this points of view

message?

Most media are

5 Purpose Why is this message organized to Have I communicated
being sent? gain profit my purpose effectively?

and/or power

15

5. The teacher checks the collected information and imposes corrections if
necessary.

6. Information processing - editing of the captured materials.
The method is developed and described by (2 ELS Thomas Jefferson, Sofia
Bulgaria).

16

3.2 Introducing fake news at school

Target Age 12 - 18 years old

Required resources Some fake and true stories on
topics students should be close to

and familiar with.

Environment School building, school platform

Purpose To get the students to talk and
discuss some news items related to
their school and environment and
stimulate their logical and critical

thinking.

Step-by-step description of the activity
1- For one week, several pieces of news about the school or its close
environment are spread among the students (posters in the corridors,
articles on the school platform, etc). Some of these news items are true
and some are fake.

2- It is important that these items have a strong connection to their
(school) lives so that the students are triggered to talk about them with
their peers.

3- At the end of the week, it is important to reveal which items were
fake. This can be done through the following statement: "Did you fall for
them?”, followed by the fake news items.

4- Teachers use this activity to warn the students not to believe
everything they hear, see, or read.

The method is developed and described by (Collège La Fraternité,
Brussels, Belgium).

17

3.3 Sessions with famous journalists in schools

Target Age 14 - 19 years old
Required resources
A laptop, a projector and a
Environment microphone in case of need.

Purpose School conference hall

Getting to know the perspectives of
famous journalists related to

learning and deriving classroom
activities by the end of the sessions

Step-by-step description of the activity

1- Contact a journalist famous at the local/national level and invite the
journalist to your school for a session.

2- Ask your students to read/search about the life story of the journalist
that you are planning to invite.

3- Ask your students to prepare questions on how journalism can be used
as a learning tool, which activities to evolve so as to evolve journalism in
the school curriculum etc.

4- Choose one student to lead the session.

The method is developed and described by (Trabzon Sosyal Bilimler Lisesi,
Trabzon, Turkey)

18

3.4 Journalism club activities to improve
journalism as a learning tool: Team Research for e-
News

Journalism club is possible to establish at school as a school activity for
interested students.

Target Age 14 - 18 years old

Required resources Specific technology for the
realisation of the chosen media
product (photo/video camera, a
school newspaper or radio/TV
channel, laptop), internet access,
personal or school account on the

platform https://wenewz.be/,
various online documentation
resources about different curricular
or extracurricular subjects, video

projector.

Environment Classroom/ headquarters of the
Purpose journalistic club and online - using

https://wenewz.com

To document certain topics or learn
different subjects through
journalism. It can be used

extracurricular or in the context of
regular lessons for a curricular
research purpose.

19

Step-by-step description of the activity

1- The teacher or coordinator of the journalism club selects the topic for
documentation/research. The research topics could be from different
areas such as technology, religion, social media, music, education, health,
social issues, environment. For example, regarding social media, a list of
suggested topics could be:

a. Are social networks making us lonely and unsociable?
b. How to protect children online?
c. What are some ways to identify harassment on social media?
d. Why do people have the need to do everything online?
e. How to stop cyber-bullying?
f. Can the internet help people find jobs or further education?
g. How to make a break from social media?
h. Why are younger generations obsessed with the number of

followers and likes?
i. Is there such a thing as social media addiction?
j. Who are world-famous influencers on social media?

2- Students will be organized in groups of 4-5 members, and they will
negotiate and distribute different roles inside the team, such as article/
webpage/ television/ film producer, web content manager, photographer,
adviser, and editorial assistant.

3- The teams will have a certain period to document the chosen topic and
to develop a complete media product to present the results of the
documentation/research.

4- Until a set deadline, the teams will publish the media products on the
platform https://wenewz.com.

5- Public presentation of the media products developed by each team and
group discussion and reflection.

The method is developed and described by (Colegiul National Calistrat
Hogas, Piatra Neamţ, Romania)

20

UNIT 4 - CLASSROOM
ACTIVITIES

Classroom activities are activities a teacher can introduce
and organise within the classroom setting. Such activities
are easier to organise than school activities since the
teacher can implement them as part of normal teaching.
For a full overview of several activities, visit the journalism
website https://jlt-project.eu/

In the following Unit, 4 examples of activities will be extensively
described with a step-by-step guide for each of them.
Specifically, the following will be presented:

Small public speaking in class - the basics
of building and receiving informative
messages
Follow the instructions
Students' interviews with each other
Classroom debates

21

4.1 Small public speaking in class - the basics of
building and receiving informative messages

Target Age 10 - 18 years old
Required resources
Support sheet for the application of
Environment the 5 W's and H Questions model in
media content/informative speech
Purpose production; a form for peer review

Classroom or virtual classroom

To strengthen students' ability to
communicate and to deal with
different public information; to
create a context where students
can practice communication,

research, creative writing, and self-
expression skills; to practice the 5
W's and H model of building and

receiving a message.

Step-by-step description of the activity

1- Brainstorming: students will be invited to select a recent event from
their school or community that they find important, and interesting.
The teacher lists the events proposed by the students.

2- Brief theoretical introduction to media production techniques; the
teacher introduces the students to media communication strategies:

22

a. The teacher explains that the meaning of a media text or product
is determined by the relationship between the Audience (those
who engage with a media text), the Text (the content of a media
product or a public speech) and the Production (everything that
goes into making a media text).

b. The teacher introduces students to the basics of how to present
the information in the form of informative news, using the
construction technique of 5 W's and H Questions (Who? What?
When? Where? Why? and How?):
1. Who was involved?
2. What happened?
3. When did it happen?
4. Where did it happen?
5. Why did it happen?
6. How did it happen?

23

3- Content production: the students will have 25-30 minutes to document
and develop short informative speeches that respect the 5 W's and H
Questions construction technique. They will have to answer the 5 W's and
H questions about the best thing they did or experienced last week.

4- Small public speaking: each student presents his informative speech in
front of his / her classmates.

5- Peer review: each student will evaluate the classmate’s speeches using
a special form for peer review, 5 W's and H:

Example of peer review form

Watch and tick in the table below if the speeches contain the elements of
5 W's and H model:

Subject Name of the Who was What When Where Why did How did
of Public speaker involved happened did it did it it it
Speech ?? happen happen? happen? happen?
?

xxx xxx √ (yes) - (no)        

Number of rows equal to the
number of speakers

24

6- Group reflection: final discussions regarding the usefulness of the 5
W's and H model in constructing and receiving the message (the speaker
and audience perspective).
The method is developed and described by (Colegiul National Calistrat
Hogas, Piatra Neamţ, Romania)

25

4.2 Follow the instructions

Target Age 10 - 18 years old

Required resources A document with some instructions

Environment Classroom

Purpose To teach the students to read
carefully before they act

Step-by-step description of the activity

1- Each student receives a copy of a list of instructions. It is important to
set a time limit of 3 minutes and to insist that the students follow the
instructions carefully but quickly. The first instruction needs to be the
following: “First read everything carefully”. One of the last instructions
needs to be: “You just have to do the following: Go to the teacher and tell
her/him that you can read carefully”.

2- After the 3 minutes, the teacher points out the winner, who is not the
fastest student, but the student who can read carefully and didn’t follow
any other instruction than reading everything and going to the teacher.

3- Afterwards, the teacher explains to the students that it is important to
read first, before doing anything. This rule is very important, especially
on the internet.

The method is developed and described by (Collège La Fraternité,
Brussels, Belgium)

26

4.3 Students’ interviews with each other

Target Age 10 - 18 years old

Required resources An audio recorder, a camera

Environment Classroom

Purpose Getting to know how to interview
people

Step-by-step description of the activity

1- The teacher explains how to carry out an interview, what to pay
attention to, and the types of interviews.

2- The teacher divides the students into pairs.

3- Students are asked to prepare questions for the interview and realise
their interviews.

4- Students demonstrate their interviews in class.

5- Good examples are published on school websites.

The method is developed and described by (Trabzon Sosyal Bilimler Lisesi,
Trabzon, Turkey)

27

4.4 Classroom debates 15 - 17 years old

Target Age Preparation of criterion matrix,
Required resources could be paper cards, pens,cards
Required equipment
creation (cards: the next-gen
Environment debate evidence collector)
https://youtu.be/3_ypmrP1lfw
Purpose
Internet connection-smartphone or
laptop/Chromebook

Classroom or Media Library Club

This debate is an intellectual game,
with the goal of challenging the

two teams and eliminate one of the
strongest human fears - speaking in

public to people and sharing a
motivating opinion, suggestion and

reaching the right decision.
Students will develop many skills,

such as public speaking, critical
thinking, research, tolerance for
other positions, and teamwork. It is

important that students are
prepared to debate in support of

and against the statement.

28

Step-by-step description of the activity

One team supports the statement and the other denies it.
a. Team 1: for the statement (3 students)
b. Team 2 against the statement(3 students)

1- Before giving the task itself, explain that some students will compete
on the side opposite to their beliefs and preferences, but this is one of
the basic skills.

2- Note that they need to research the topic that well to be stronger
debaters.

3- Structure for research and recording of arguments:
a. study
b. analysis
c. argumentation
d. discussion
e. conclusion
f. summary
g. decision

4- At the time of the debate, distribute the criterion matrix to the other
students. They will observe, note, ask questions, and, finally, judge.

5- Start the debate. Give the first team (team For) 5-7 minutes to present,
present the topic, and what they will defend. Both participants must
speak equally; Repeat the step with the other team (team Against).

6- Give the teams 3 minutes to think and clearly prepare their rebuttal.
Then give the teams 3 minutes to refute.

29

7- Then each team has a certain time to conclude and summarize their
position and arguments, as well as a decision.
8- Allow time for the audience to ask questions on the topic.
9- Allow time to discuss with the audience the performance of the teams
on the matrix.
10- Reflect with the participants on the debate process.
The method is developed and described by (2 ELS Thomas Jefferson, Sofia
Bulgaria).

30

CONCLUSIONS

Authors' Report

To conclude it is important to say that this Handbook
of best practices for implementing journalism as a
learning tool for schools is not the ending point of
our work.

In fact, this is an endless process because the

resources, instructions, techniques and

methodologies of training that we have used,

through experience and research, have proven to be

efficient for the target group of adults we have had,

but of them are in a constant change and

development, depending on the people we are

working with at each training. But at this point, the

above proposed resumes the current best practices

we have used so far.

The WeNewz publishing platform will be kept alive
and contribute to school and classroom activities
also after the project ends.

The Journalism project has had, since its beginning,
the aim to engage a variety of target populations, to
reach different target groups.

According to that, this Handbook is intended to point
out the best practices on how to use journalism as a
learning tool with several different approaches. This
will give students of all ages motivation to develop
their written communication skills as well as keep
themselves updated in our complex media world.

May 2022

31

PROJECT NUMBER:
2019-1-NO01-KA201-060268




PROJECT PARTNERSHIP
Prios Kompetanse AS - Norway
Thomas Jefferson –Bulgaria
Trabzon Sosyal Bilimler Lisesi–Turkey
Colegiul National Calistrat Hogas–Romania
Asbl La Fraternité–Belgium
Vienna Association of Education Volunteers - Austria

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute
an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information
contained therein.