Johnny Tremain

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Johnny Tremain Newspaper Article”

After reading about Johnny’s adventures in Johnny Tremain, students create newspaper articles based on details from Forbes’s novel.

You’ve just read about Johnny’s adventures during the early days of the Revolutionary War. Your goal for this activity is to create a newspaper article that discusses the most important events in the novel.

• Choose 10 important moments that trace Johnny’s character development over the course of the novel.
• Using this list of 10 events, write a newspaper article about Johnny’s adventures.
• End the article with an important lesson that Johnny learns because of his adventures. This lesson should connect to one of the novel’s main themes, which are Surviving in a Changing World, Learning Humility and Empathy, and Self-Sacrifice for the Greater Good. Please present the lesson in your own words rather than simply restating the name of the theme.
• Give your article a unique, creative title that is different from the novel’s title.
• Draw a relevant illustration for your article to catch your readers’ attention.
• Use fonts, columns, and other formatting details to help your work look like a newspaper article.
• When you have finished working on this activity, you will turn in a written copy of your article complete with:

o A creative title

o 10 moments from the novel

o A lesson based on a main theme

o A relevant image

If time permits, share and discuss your article.

Teaching Suggestion: Students can complete this activity individually, with a partner, or in small groups. To help them approach this assignment like a newspaper article rather than a book report, students may benefit from imagining themselves as a local printer in colonial Boston like Mr. Lorne. In addition, some students may demonstrate their creativity by structuring their piece as an interview, a letter to the editor, or another type of newspaper article.

Differentiation Suggestion: Because drawing an illustration may prove difficult for students with small motor challenges, it might be appropriate to allow them to use a computer to create or find images for their articles. Students with executive function and attentional issues may benefit from working in pairs or small groups to brainstorm the most important moments in the novel and place them in chronological order. A graphic organizer, such as a timeline, may help them structure their ideas during this phase.