Hidden Histories

Author Nicolas Brasch, with the help of research from the Parliament Library's heritage team, has put together a series of newspaper articles delving into parliament's hidden histories and untold mysteries. From ghosts, hidden tunnels and goat races to modern tales of a building restored, The Parliament Post has all the news from Parliament House, and maybe a few rumours.

Classroom activities

Spot the difference

Newspapers are full of all different types of articles and writing styles, and The Parliament Post is no exception. Can you identify the different types of articles and writing styles in The Parliament Post? You might like to think about editorials, features or opinion pieces, for example.

• Why do newspapers have different types of articles and writing styles
• What are the main differences between the different styles?
• What similarities can you identify?
• Who might read the diferrent articles?

Can you tell: fact or fiction?

The Parliament Post was based on research by the Parliament Library's heritage team. The articles have lots of facts, but also some fiction and maybe some facts that have been a little stretched from the truth. 

Pick one of the articles and see if you can tell fact from fiction?

• Why might an author mix fact and fiction together?
• How might someone reading the newspaper work out what is fact and what is fiction? What sort of questions might they ask?

The Parliament Post interrogation

Newspaper articles often have the following aspects:

• Who - Who is the person or people involved?
• What - What happened? What is the main issue or event?
• Where - Where did it happen? Was it in one place or multiple places?
• When - When did it happen? 
• Why - Why did it happen? What was the purpose of the event? What was the cause of the issue? 
• How - How did it happen?

You can write and the answer more 'Who, what, where, when, why and how' questions by using the Question matrix. 

Once you've answered the questions, see if you can write a new newspaper article using your answers, maybe in a different style article.

Designer for a day

You've been given the task to do some re-design on The Parliament Post.

• Select one or two articles
• Suggest some different or additional pictures to go with the article
  • Think about how the pictures might either add or emphasis information found in the articles
  • Make sure you add captions (notes explaining the pictures) and references if you've used images from another source