News Story Writing Rubric

Students will structure a news story with the required elements: newspaper name, headline, date, byline, place line, and title.

Students will write a lead paragraph that answers who, what, when, where, why, and how, and hooks the reader’s attention.

Students will support a news story with three captioned pictures and at least two direct quotes from witnesses.

Students will write factual, opinion-free reporting using correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and sentence construction.

Hand this rubric out before students begin drafting, not just at grading time, so the point values guide what they include (six content elements, two quotes, three captioned pictures) as they write.

Since the sheet is printed twice per page, cut it in half to grade two students’ stories from a single printed copy.

Use the Content section’s point breakdown (31 of 50 points) to show students that factual reporting and story elements matter more to their grade than mechanics alone.

News story structure — students include all required elements (headline, byline, dateline, lead paragraph) scored in the Content section.

Lead-paragraph writing — students answer the W5H (who, what, when, where, why, how) questions in an attention-getting opening.

Source integration — students incorporate at least two direct quotes from witnesses into a factual, opinion-free story.

Writing mechanics — students apply correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and sentence construction throughout.