"Extra! Extra! City Day students create newscast..."
In drama class, the fifth-graders at Chicago City Day School used interviewing, public speaking, and acting skills to create a school news program. The finished newscast, filmed at the school, includes comments from the show's anchors, interview footage, even commercials.
The students chose all the topics covered in the program and collaborated throughout the project.
"They were so eager and motivated," drama teacher Liza Batinich said. "They took every aspect of the project very seriously, from the original brainstorming sessions to the actual filming."
During the filming, the students relied on many of the same skills they'd need to perform on stage.
"We talked about things like eye contact, and focus, and speaking with volume," Ms. Batinich said.
The students also learned new skills, such as how to plan and execute an interview. They students wrote short introductions and conclusions for the interview sections, and they developed lists of questions for each.
To give the final program the feeling of an actual televised newscast, the students also created "commercials" to air between the news segments. The commercials promote upcoming City Day events.
Creating the newscast gave students the chance to explore City Day's emphasis on public speaking in a slightly different way, one they'll likely return to many times in high school and beyond.
"On-camera skills are very important in this digital age," Ms. Batinich said. "The students loved applying what they've learned so far about public speaking at City Day to this medium."
