Activity 1

Warm Up
o Do you like reading?
o Would you prefer to read printed or electronic Newspapers? Which one do you like?
And Why?
o What do you think the main function of a newspaper?
o Which papers do you read regularly and why?
o Which part of the newspaper do you read first?
o What is your opinion of local newspaper?
o ‘Newspapers do not report the news – they make it’. Do you agree?
o What makes a story newsworthy?
o Should newspapers express a particular point of view, or should they try to give both
sides of an argument?
o What are the functions of photographs in newspaper?

Activity 2
A. Text Structure

➢ The social Function of News items:

To inform readers, listeners, or viewers about events of the day which are considered
newsworthy or important and interesting

➢ The Text Organization Of News Items ( Generic Structure):

 Newsworthy events ( tells the event in a summary form )

 Background events ( elaborate what happened, tell what caused the incident )
 Sources ( comments by participants, witnesses, authorities and experts involved in the
event)

➢ Language Features:
 Information on the use of headlines
 The Past Tenses (the simple past, the past continuous, the past perfect)
We went to the Zoo last week
They were watching television when the thief entered their house quietly.
She had come earlier before we arrived there
I was very happy and wanted to go there again
 Use of Action verb
 e.g. go walk, run, eat, drive, ride, kick
 Use of Saying verbs
e.g. tell, say, reply, shout, answer, complain
 Use of Passive sentences
The three victims were found by A SAR Team in Banda sea
Her bags are taken by Sandra
 Use of Adverbs of manner
e.g. happily, joyfully, slowly, fast, quickly
 Use of Adverbs of time and place
e.g. one day, after the lesson, in the classroom, through the green grass
 Use of Adjective to form noun phrases
e.g. a beautiful, sunny day, a large, green field, a soft, white, sandy beach
 Use of Conjunction to link sentences
e.g. and, but, so, because, for, or
 Use of Time connective
e.g. after that, meanwhile, the next morning, then, finally, next, at the end.
 Use of Pronouns
e.g. he, she, they, we them, his, her, him, us, our, my
 Direct and indirect speech
e.g.
‘The victims were taken to hospital for intensive care,” said the chief police (direct
speech)
The meteorologist said that there were no victims during the tremor. (Indirect speech)

How can we believe that any text is labeled as news item? Take a look at that above example!
How can we define and find out the text is really a news item? Well the best and easy way to
identify whether a text is a news item or not is by seeing the structure. So here is the schematic
structure of the sample above

Generic Structure Analysis on News Item Text

Generic
Elements of the Content
Structure
News worthy The news worthy in that above text is clearly said that the monkey fores in Ubud
event has been nominated to receive Kalpataru Award.
Background event are elaborating the news worthy event stated in the first
paragraph. How the event happens or why the event takes place. It is firstly
Background supported by the second paragraph which explains shortly about kalpataru award.
events Second elaboration is short information what and who keep and manage monkey
forest. Then the background event again states that monkey forest is a place for
more and less 115 species of plants
The sources in news item text can the witness of event, authority and the
Sources participants. Here the authority is as the source as the chairman of kalpataru Award
goes to the only one nomination, that is monkey forest in Ubud
So what do you think about this example of news item text? I think we get two benefits when
learning such kind of text. First we are learning English, by reading that short news we know some
new vocabularies, and we know how to arrange paragraphs into good text as a whole. Second, we
also know the news, what happens around us. It is good, isn’t it?

Activity 3
A. Work in a small group and analyze a part of the news item below depending on their
group (Students split into group of eight, the four groups analyze the text A and others
analyze the text B)

1. Text A

Stowaway in Garuda Flight

Mario Steve Ambarita, 21, was caught on Tuesday, April 7, as he emerged from a Garuda
Indonesia plane that had just landed at the Soekarno-Hatta International airport. What made him
suspicious was the fact that he was exiting from the plane’s wheel well, and not through the door
like everyone else.
What prompted Mario to do such a reckless thing? He said he simply wanted to see Jakarta,
where he was born, and meet his long time idol — the president. He sneaked into a plane and fly
949 kilometers while sitting in the landing gear dock.
Mario admitted that he snuck into the plane before it took off from the Sultan Syarif Kasim II
airport in Pekan baru, Riau, in western Indonesia. And that he stayed in the wheel well during the
105-minute flight.
He arrived alive and well in Jakarta The airport clinic said Mario was fine but perhaps needed
to recover from his unusual ordeal.
“We don’t know how he was able to enter the (restricted) area,” Garuda Indonesia’s vice
president for corporate communications, Pujobroto, told Kompas.com. “He knew that the plane
would stop for a moment before taking off. That was when he entered the plane through the wheel,”
Pujobroto said.

▪ Group 1 : Newsworthy event

▪ Group 2 : Background event
▪ Group 3 : Sources
▪ Group 4 : language features

2. Text B
Students Arrested for Doing Pepper Spraying
For about 100 students at a suburban Atlanta high school were evacuated on Wednesday
morning after a material was released in a school hallway.
It noticed that something was causing teachers and students to cough during a class change
Wednesday morning. It started around 10:15 a.m. when students and teachers in the school’s Banks
building began complaining of itchy eyes and noses. Some of them couldn’t breathe or see.
The building was evacuated and custodians installed fans to clear the air. Firefighters needed
an hour to clear the building before classes resumed a short time later.
 Security cameras inside the school caught the students spraying pepper spray inside a
downstairs hallway in the lower section of the building. Police said that it was the result of a prank.
Three students were arrested on Wednesday afternoon and charged with pepper spraying. the
students would face a tribunal through the Board of Education and that any punishment by the
school system would be determined, the school official said.

▪ Group 5 : Newsworthy event

▪ Group 6 : Background event
▪ Group 7 : Sources
▪ Group 8 : language features

B. Share you analysis results in front of class.

Activity 4
A. Read and analyze the generic structure of the text.

Police discover 13 petrol bombs in Palu

PALU(Antara):
Police searching a conflict area between two central Sulawesi villages in Poso have discovered
13 Petrol Bombs
Dozens of people have been injured in fighting between the two villages in recent weeks. On
Dec. 8, dozens were injured and scores of houses were destroyed in fighting, while at least 18
people were wounded in a more recent clash and had to be evacuated to several hospitals in Palu.
“after bombing the area from Sunday night to Monday morning, we found 13 petrol bombs
hidden in water channels and bushes”, a police source said here Monday
He said the situation in the area was under control, but that guards had been posted at several
points, while the road connecting the villages of Nunu and Tavanjuka remained closed.
Taken from:http//www.thejakartapost.com

Title

Newsworthy event

Background events

Sources 1

Sources 2
B. Read the following text below and then work in pairs, answer the questions
Yogyakarta Promotes Commuting by Bike
The Jakarta Post
More than 2.000 people participated in bike-to-work and bike-to-school promotional
events staged on Yogyakarta’s Alun-Alun Utara Square a Monday Morning.
The participants who include civil servants, private-sector employees, students, police, and
soldier represented 30 different bicycle clubs.
“We have to support this program to help Yogyakarta be an environmentally friendly city”,
Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono X said.
Yogyakarta Mayor Herry Zudianto said the program would benefit the city by reducing
pollution levels and global warming contributions. “It’s also good for our health”, he added
Herry said the city administration would allocate funds to construct designated cycle routes
if their numbers increased significantly.
Taken from:http//www.thejakartapost.com

1. What is the main information of the text?................................................................................

..................................................................................................................................................
2. How many people participated in the morning event?.............................................................
3. What was the purpose of the event?.........................................................................................
4. Where did the event take place ?..............................................................................................
5. Why did the Yogyakarta Mayor say that this program would benefit the city?......................
……………………………………………………………………………………………......
6. When would a cycle route be constructed?..............................................................................
7. Find words in the text that have the same meaning as these words/phrases.
a. Take part in :……………………………………………………………………………..
b. An open area in town :……………………………………………………………………..
c. People who join an activity :…………………………………………………………….
d. Take advantages :……………………………………………………………………..
e. Make less :……………………………………………………………………………..
8. How is the structured?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…..................................................................................................................................................
......................................................................................................................................................
9. Describe the language feature of the text?
 …………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Activity 5
A. Rearrange these jumbled paragraphs so that they can make coherent news.
The boy was immediately rushed to Manning Base Hospital in Tare, but
…………………
later was sent to Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital
………………… A Hit-and-Run Injured a Boy
He argued anyone who witnessed the incident to report to Crime
…………………
Stoppers on 1800 333 000
At midday yesterday the boy was playing with two other boys near
………………… Dennes Street, Wingham when a motorcycle with a passenger knocked
him to the ground. The cop said that it was a hit-and-run accident.
A boy had serious fracture in a hit-and-run on the mid north coast of
…………………
NSW
(‘Boy Injured in Hit and Run’,2011)

B. Rewrite those above jumbled paragraphs so that they can make coherent news. Supply
it with the best title.

Title

Newsworthy event

Background event

Sources

Activity 6
A. Write a newsworthy event into news
1. Recall an event happening recently in your school, your neighborhood, or in your
country.
 2. Write the first draft and consult it with your teacher about it.
3. Write the second draft and let your friend check your work using the following student’s
checklist.
No Items to be check Peer Editor’s Comment
1 Is the format correct? ( the title, margins,
and spacing)

2 Text Organization

a. Has he/she mentioned the

newsworthy event?

b. What is the topic?

c. How many background events are

there in his/her news?

d. Has she/he included the sources?

e. Who are the sources?

3 Grammar

a. Has he/she written the headline

correctly?

b. Has he/she used action verbs and

saying verbs?

c. Has he/she used passive sentences in

her/his news?

4 Punctuation

a. Has he/she written the date, month,

and year correctly?
b. Has he/she put the correct
punctuation for the name and place?

SELF-REFLECTION

Before studying this chapter I didn’t understand about:

 ………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
When I was studying this ➢ Difficulties:
chapter ………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
➢ How I overcome the difficulties:
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
Having studied this chapter I think:
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………