Analyzing Newspaper Leads & Articles

Analyzing Newspaper Leads and Articles

Teacher Notes:
Review the following information with the students before starting this section.

 Leads:
A lead is the first paragraph in the news piece. It’s sole purpose is to HOOK the reader to read
the complete article. To do this the reporter chooses the most important points from: WHO,
WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY or HOW.

Determine the two or three most crucial questions to use in the lead. They will relate the key
points of the incident/situation, and will offer an indication of the reporter’s slant- viewpoint.
The other questions will be detailed and clarified in the article.

A Lead should NOT be more than 35 words, so make every word count

A NEWS and Sports News Lead should always be a Hard Summary Lead. This means it is
factual. Save opinions and obvious slant for Features, Sports Features, Opinions/Editorials, and
Reviews.

Feature Leads may be:

• Anecdote: relates an emotional or exciting part of a situation.
• Description: paints a word picture of a person, place or object instead of telling about it.
• Question: an acceptable format, but is a very, very weak choice. The purpose of writing is to

answer the readers’ questions, not ask them.

• Stance on an issue: clarifies the writer’s opinion on a controversial point. This is better for

Opinion/Editorial pieces.

• Startling fact or statement: the purpose is to shock the readers.
• Contrast: compares polar opposites: huge/tiny, or explosive/placid
• Quotation: This could be a citation from an important person mentioned in the body of the

article or said by an important person, but relates to the story’s purpose.

• Literary or Historical Allusion: a reference to a person, place, thing, or idea in literature or

history that is commonly known to the paper’s readers.

• Suspended Interest: ignites interest by starting at the beginning of an incident/situation and then

following a chronological order. Readers will only find out the resolution by reading the whole
piece.

How to Teach Leads:
• Hand out newspapers, or have students go online to the newseum.org/ , scroll down the Home

page and click on Today’s Front Pages.

• Ask students to analyze various stories. Hint-most of the Leads should be Hard Summary Leads

as the first section is NEWS. For FEATURE Leads, students can Google search for various
national/International newspapers and find articles in the sections that include Features,
Entertainment, Fashion, Style Sports Features, etc.

• For more activities, check out “Journalism-Analyzing Front Page Stories: Journalism-Analyzing-

Front-Page-Stories-1663001 Under my Journalism Custom Category in my TpT Store: Connie.

• Students can show their understanding by using the forms on pages 6-11 in this packet.
• When you are comfortable with their responses, have them create a scrapbook of various Leads

and types of articles. Three of each type is a good place to start.

Copyright 2011, 2014, 2018 Constance D. Casserly All rights reserved by author.

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