Assingment

[Chubbhead EFM]

ok chaps, have a go:

 

The assignment will count for 25% of the final grade for the portfolio. Assessment will be based on the following:

 

• presentation (house style layout and presentation of quotes as outlined in the house style presentation)
• clean copy (free of spelling errors and literals)
• grammar/punctuation

• language (news language, compression,economy )

• intro(use news values to write an active Who? What? intro)

• structure

• general handling (fluency, coherence, effectiveness )

 

Write a 10/12 par news story, max 350 words, using the following briefings and materials:

 

You are a reporter for Edinburgh Evening News, with a circulation in the city of Edinburgh and the surrounding communities of the Lothians. It is the morning of Friday, November 4th, and you are writing the edition which is published on the same date.

 

The news editor asks you to take a phone call from Colonel Dick Mason, regimental secretary of the Royal Scots regiment to write a news story. Colonel Mason tells you that there will be a funeral on Wednesday, November 10th at 11.30am, at the military cemetery in Ypres, Belgium. The skeletons of four First World War soldiers of the Royal Scots will be buried with full military honours.

 

The bodies were discovered in Northern France on October 3rd this year when a farmerwas ploughing a new field. A team of archaeologists led by Dr Alain Jacques, from the University of Lille, examined the find and located the remains of the four soldiers. This discovery was reported by French and British newspapers at the time.

 

Dr Jacques was quoted at the time as believing that the men were probably killed by a mortar shell, judging from the positions of their bodies. The bodies appeared to have been covered over by mud, and by subsequent layers of earth, rather than buried.

 

It has been established that the four infantrymen died fighting in the first day of the Battle of Arras on April 9th, 1917.

 

Although it has proved impossible to establish the identities of three of the men, one has been identified as Private Archibald McMillan from Armadale, West Lothian. He was aged 27 when he met his death in action.

 

Colonel Mason says: "It was a piece of detective work to establish the identity of Private McMillan. All we had to go on was a rusty old dog tag found on one of the skeletons by Dr Jacques. The number linked to a name wrongly spelled as 'MacMillan' inthe records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. But we contacted Mr Jack Alexander, an amateur historian here in Edinburgh who has made a specialist study of identifying WW1 soldiers.

 

Mr Alexander put us straight on the name of Private Archibald McMillan, and we were able to trace his descendents, who are still in the town of Armadale. They have been invited to the military funeral next week and I believe they intend to attend."

 

You drive to 12, Covendale Terrace in Armadale, the address given by Colonel Mason for Mrs Helen Weir, granddaughter of Private McMillan. It is a council house and Mrs Weir invites you in. She says: "We were completely gobsmacked when we were contacted by the Royal Scots to say that they had identified my grandfather. It was all a bit much to take in, particularly for my father, who only really knew my grandfather through photos.

 

He just knew that his daddy had not come back from the war. He was only three when his mum got the telegram to say that his dad was missing in action. It is quite a shock to learn his body has been found all these years later."

 

Mrs Weir introduces you to her father, Mr Archie McMillan, aged 90, the son of the dead soldier. Mr McMillan lives with Mrs Weir at this address, and he is in good health. He shows an old framed photograph of a soldier in WW1 uniform, which he says is his father. McMillan says: "Everyone calls me Archie-same as my dad was called. I can just remember him coming home from leave and then going back to the war. That was all the memory I have of him. My mother never married again, and I had 2 older brothers. They're all dead now, but they would have been delighted to know that his body has been found at last. We never had a grave to visit. So, there's nothing going to stop me now from attending his funeral next week. It will be the proudest and saddest day of my life."

 

phew! now my fingers hurt! anyway, have fun, I'll be back to mark them later!