Grammatical Features of an Informational News Article (Attention to Form)

Now that you have read an informational news article, you are going to learn important grammar features that are often used in this type of writing. Use the article Obama Wins! to guide you through the following activity.

Activity:

1. What part of speech are the bolded words?

2. What is a verb?

3. What do all the bolded words have in common?

They are all and they all end in .

4. Read the example from the article. Then type the words that tell you when the action happens in the box below.

The President thanked voters and spoke about the challenges ahead for the nation.

He promised to work with leaders of both parties to improve the country.

When does the action happen?

 

5. So... Verb + =

 

*In an informational news article, the author often writes in the past tense to tell the reader about something that has already happened. You can also look at the title and the date of the article for clues as to when the event happened.

 

6. Look at the sentences in the article that are underlined. Think about what is the same in each sentence. Type the things that are the same in the underlined sentences below in the text box.

"Whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, and you've made me a better President," Obama said.

"The nation, as you know, is at a critical point, " Romney said.

7. " " are called . What do these marks tell the reader?

8. The word said means... to in the .

 

*When an author wants to get more information about an event (something that has already happened), he/she can ask people for information. The author needs to use quotation marks if they use something another person said in their article. That is how you know someone else said it and not the author.

 

9. To write about something someone said you need to do the following:

a) Use quotation marks at the and the of what the person said.

b) Include the word .

c) Write the name of the person who said it.

10. Use what you have learned to write an example quote in the box below.

 

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Test Yourself on these Grammatical Features!

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