European Union

For Geography you have started a project about the European Union: Write an article for a magazine. Your article has to be an opinion piece about a current EU

topic. The magazine you are writing for aims at young people who are interested in everything that goes on in the world and who would like to know more about global issues.

Topics:
What to do with the refugees coming to the EU?
BREXIT: good idea or not?
Turkey and the EU, in or out?

Visuals

When you open a magazine or a newspaper, you will also see multiple visuals (pictures, cartoons, drawings) in/next/under/above the text. There are many reason for adding these visuals:

to support the writers opinion.
to bait readers into reading the article (did you know that articles with images get 94% more total views).
to appeal to the reader.
visuals have the power to help explain complicated subjects.
it can help structure the article (images in between your text can create a small break between topics).
you can make your article seem longer.
visuals help the reader remember your article after they have read it.

Visual Layouts

Have a look at these examples on the left or find a magazine or newspaper at home and go through it! How many different kinds of layouts can you see? Can you identify why the visuals are being used?

aSSIGNMENT

You will be getting the role of chief editor of a magazine and you will be making a 2 page layout for your article + visuals.

Step 1: Sketching

Take another A4 and come up with visuals that go with the topic of your article. Like previously mentioned, visuals is a very broad term. Meaning that you could choose to draw realistically, unrealistically, cartoon style, your own style etc. As long as you make sure that your article benefits from your visuals.

Step 2: Experimenting with layouts (10minutes)

Take an A4 paper and divide it into 4 areas (fold it 2x). Place your paper vertically and you will have two pages at the top and two pages below. This gives you 2 options to try out a layout that you think would work for your 2 magazine pages. Think about your article and imagine what you want to place where?

When you have finished your article and visuals you can adjust your layout. First lets try some things out as experiments.

For examples: see below or open a magazine or see the examples above in visual layouts.

Step 3: final product

Your final product will be made on two vertical A4's next to each other (like the inside page of a magazine). You may tape them together if you wish.

Bring your text and your visuals together.

If you can print your article and add it! (If you don't have a printer, you may either write it or draw boxes with keywords of the paragraph.)

Criteria:

you have used 2 A4's vertically (upright) to create the illusion of a magazine inside.
you have created a logical, neat, structured and harmonious (balanced) layout.
you have applied the visuals for some of the reasons mentioned above (see Visuals).
there is a clear link between the visuals and the article.
the visuals have been coloured in by a medium (pencil, paint, ink etc.) of the maker's choice.
the visuals support your opinions that you have written about in your article.

Planning tto 3a:

wk 11-15 Jan: Brainstorm and start on sketch
wk 18-22 Jan: Work on sketch and make 2 layouts
wk 25-29 Jan: Start on final product
wk 1- 5 Feb: Work on final product
wk 8-12 Feb Finish final product

Planning tto 3b:

wk 18-22 Jan: Start on sketch (Homework: make 2 layout)
wk 25-29 Jan: Work on sketch
wk 1- 5 Feb: Start final product
wk 8- 12 Feb: Finish final product

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