Writing & Discussion Activities to Promote Awareness of Fake News

Newspaper Generator is a useful tool that enables you to create what looks like a newspaper front page.

To do this you upload an image, select a title and a headline and then write in the details of the story. Then just click on 'Make it' and the site will produce a PDF that you can download.

You can use this in class for a number of activities.

• This is a nice way to get students writing news type texts and then publishing them.
• You can also use it to get them thinking about fake news by creating a selection of news articles, some based on real news stories and others that you invent. You can then ask them to research the articles and find out which ones are real and which are invented.
• You could also use the headlines and articles to generate discussion over which are real and which are fake or work on how to spot fake news.
• You could get students to create their own fake news test by creating two real news stories and one fake one. They can then see if they can trick their classmates into believing the fake one is true. They could use this Factitious game as their inspiration. 

Newspaper Generator can be used in an enjoyable way to raise awareness of issues regarding the credibility of news and to promote more critical thinking.

See also: 6 Useful Resources for Exploiting the News in the English Language Classroom

You can find more tools and activities like these in my ebook 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom.

The book is available on iOS or as PDF for other devices.

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My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey