Apollo 13 newspaper reports

This past fortnight the class has been working on newspaper reports using ‘Talk for Writing’ techniques as part of the More than Mods and Rockers topic. They spent the first week orally learning a report about Apollo 11, writing text maps and getting the feel of the text. This past week they have created a toolkit, boxed up the report and then wrote it in full, complete with polishing and publishing.

This is one example: Cerys (Year 5)

Fly-back Forever!

Apollo 13 is back from space.

Yesterday, 17^th April 1970, a date that will spend every second in the dates of history’s diary book, the three heroic astronauts of Apollo 13 returned home. These fortunate astronauts of American descent were called James A. Lovell, John L. “Jack” Swigert and as a last minute replacement Fred W. Halse. The take-off took place in Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, with mission control watching over them in Houston. They attempted to go to the moon but unfortunately they didn’t due to a fault on board their ship. They splashed down yesterday in the Pacific Ocean. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

          Apollo 13 had its launch in Kennedy Space Centre on April 11^th and everything went absolutely within its scheme. All of a sudden, an unexpected explosion punctured the peace of space and delivered pandemonium throughout the electrical structure of their space craft. Immediately strategies were experimented with to mend the error. It was perceived that the oxygen tank had been ruptured and over-heated the circuits. Their lives were now dangling by a thread.

          Scientific professionals experimented and probed into various tactics of solving the dilemmas on board Apollo 13. The astronauts had to pursue asylum in the lunar module. Finally the phenomenal gurus at mission control ameliorated the C02 scrubbers from the command module and into the lunar module. They were now able to come home. They flew through the friction scorching, fiercely burning hot atmosphere and splash landed in the Pacific Ocean. The USS Iwo Jima was on hand to retrieve them.

          Upon being regained by the adventurous heroes on board the USS Iwo Jima, mission control emotionally chuckled, “We show you on the screen. You’re looking great!”

          Eventually the rollercoaster like journey was over. All three men who had left planet Earth had returned home harmlessly. Will anyone daring enough join NASA in attempt to return to the moon again? Who knows!