What you need:
A newspaper or a series of pages selected from several newspapers (over time - - specifically for this exercise)
The Activity:
Once you’ve explained to your students how numerous authors of the past (Tennyson, Hemingway, etc.) have used stories or bits of sentences within newspapers to get them started on a poem or a story, take a moment to explain how short stories can be “formatted” a certain way for effect– like writing a piece of short fiction in a journalistic style that looks like it came out of a newspaper. Next, put your newspaper pieces out where your students can get to them, and then ask them to find a piece (or pieces) that inspire them in some way or which they believe they can write in a whole new way.
Now, have them write their stories.
