Structuring Reporting on War Crimes in Sri Lanka

Assuring that Justice Is Served: Analyzing how articles about war crimes in Sri Lanka are structured to inform and engage a reader

Objective:

Students will be able to analyze how an author orders ideas and emphasizes details to raise awareness around an international issue in order to write introductions to articles examining an urgent issue in their own communities.

Warm-up:

1. Consider the following:

• When was a time that you witnessed an injustice that got ignored? In school? In your neighborhood? In your country?
• How did you know that something wrong was happening?
• Who ignored it that could have helped?
• Why do you think they ignored the event?

2. Write a brief description of the event. Use a structure that clearly communicates the event to an audience that wasn’t there. Include details and a brief analysis of why you think the event wasn’t addressed.

3. Be prepared to share your full description (or perhaps a selection) with a partner or the class.

Introducing the Lesson:

Today’s lesson will focus on work by international journalist Callum Macrae, whose project “No Fire Zone: In the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka” describes a severe act of violence in Sri Lanka that has yet to be addressed by the country’s government.

As you review the following articles and videos, notice how Macrae structures his pieces to inform the reader about the violence in Sri Lanka. For each piece, consider the following:

1. What is the author’s purpose for the article?
2. What evidence does Macrae highlight?
3. How does Macrae structure the evidence?
4. What is the tone of the piece? What examples in the text demonstrate this tone?

Introducing Resource 1: “Sri Lanka: No Fire Zone Trailer”

Macrae has synthesized a lot of this reporting into the documentary film “No Fire Zone”, which was released in 2013 and has screened all over the world.

1. View the following trailer and answer the accompanying questions.

2. Use the questions above to guide your analysis of how the piece is organized and structured.

Introducing Resource 2: “Sri Lanka: Witness to War Crimes”

1. Read the following article and answer the accompanying questions.

2. Use the questions listed under “Introducing the Lesson” to guide your analysis of how the piece is organized and structured.

Introducing Resource 3: “Sri Lanka: Slaughter in No Fire Zone”

1. Read the following article and answer the accompanying questions.

2. Use the questions listed under “Introducing the Lesson” to guide your analysis of how the piece is organized and structured.

Note: For this article, it might be helpful to know that David Cameron was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the time.

Introducing Resource 4: “Stalling Justice in Sri Lanka”

1. Read the following article and answer the accompanying questions.

2. Use the questions listed under “Introducing the Lesson” to guide your analysis of how the piece is organized and structured.

Note: This piece was written much later. Consider, what changed in the country? Do you also notice a change in the tone of the writer?

Conclusion:

1. In writing these articles about the war crimes in Sri Lanka, how did Macrae structure his pieces? Where were there similarities and differences? What were the effects on the reader? Be prepared to discuss these questions with a partner, or with the class.

2. Consider the following:

• How did the structures of Macrae’s pieces compare the structure of your warm up?
• What tools did Macrae use that you could apply to an article about the injustice you described in your warm up?

Extension Activity:

Write a draft of an article that applies what you’ve learned about structuring informative articles to one of the following tasks:

Option 1. Write an article for a local paper informing the readers about the injustice that you described in the warm up.

Option 2. Write a letter to a UN official informing him/her about the war crimes in Sri Lanka. Use the information from Macrae’s project to request that the UN official consider the solutions Macrae posed in resource. In your letter, help the UN official understand why this issue matters to you and to your community.