Jailhouse Journalism

All the students take the role of reporters assigned to cover the Sara Good Witchcraft Trial in Salem.

Divide the class in half. One half of the class truly believes that Sara could be a witch; the other half is skeptical.

As reporters, both groups should only be reporting the facts - (who, what, when, where, why and how). But their own prejudices may effect which facts they choose to report and how they report them, and they may end up producing two very different versions of the "truth". Have the students take notes during the presentation then write their stories. Finally, have each group evaluate the news stories of the other looking for evidence of prejudice.

As a pre-activity you may want to review "Journalism" as a writing style. Students could be assigned to bring in two different newspaper articles covering the same story. They could then evaluate the articles for journalistic style and compare the two stories for differences or any evidence of prejudice.






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