Classroom resources
Lessons & Classroom Activities
Resources by grade level
- MIddle School Vocabulary Quiz Generator
- High School Vocabulary Quiz Generator
- Use The News: K-4 | 5-8 | 9-12
- e-Edition Super Skills: K-5 | 5-8 | 9-12
Blogs
Interactive features
Teacher- AND student-friendly
- News Video
- Daily Science Webcasts
- Interactive News Quiz
- Cartoons for the Classroom
- Geography in the News quiz
Online Reference Guides
Additional resources to download for free
Super Skills for eEditions
Over 100 ready-to-use, standards-based activities for building skills in technology, math, science, social studies and language arts.
Download your activity sheets here:
TEACHER GUIDES:
By the Numbers: Mathematical Connections in Newspapers for Middle School Students
This math/finance curriculum guide features lesson plans, activities and handouts for middle-school students.
Citizens Together: You and Your Newspaper
This five-day lesson plans explores the individual freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights.
Community Connections With Geography and the Newspaper
This NAA Foundation publication focuses on community, its shape, history and future. Lessons and supplementary organizers target the heart of any newspaper and its sense of place. The curriculum divides the lessons into two levels that vary in complexity. National geography learning standards apply to both levels.
Level One, "Understanding Maps and Communities," consists of 11 lessons.
Level Two, "How Communities Are Created," consists of seven lessons. Format notes in each level explain the lesson structure. Both levels include graphic organizers and online resources. Lessons do not require the use of the organizers, and the organizers do not require the use of lessons. They support each other but also work independently.
All lessons and organizers offer assessment tools. Lessons include open-ended sentences, while general organizers ask students what they know about their community before and after their work with the curriculum. Organizers require direct use of newspapers, print and/or digital, in defining and understanding community and geographic concepts such as time and place. Specific organizers align with topics developed in the lessons.
►Click here to download Level One: Understanding Maps and Communities
►Click here to download Level Two: How Communities are Created
Critical Thinking Through Core Curriculum
Using Print and Digital Newspapers In the age of websites, blogs and social networking, critical thinking skills are more important than ever. Newspapers and news websites provide exceptional opportunities for students to develop critical thinking skills. This guide includes lessons and activities about financial literacy, nutrition, the environment, character education and information technology.
Developing Comprehension and Research Skills With the Newspaper
This teacher guide includes 15 lesson plans, each with a classroom activity that helps students develop comprehension and research skills through newspaper content.
Standards for the English Language Arts include:
- reading for comprehension,
- evaluation strategies,
- communication skills,
- evaluating data,
- applying language skills.
Give Them the Keys
Promoting Adolescent Literacy Through Newspapers
This teacher guide includes standardized lesson plans with common core standards, technology standards, leveled activities and assessments. Newspapers remain one of the most remarkable, multifaceted and effective educational resources available to teachers. In their print, e-edition or web versions, newspapers expose students to an ever-widening range of subjects and give teachers fresh resources for teaching both core and enrichment topics. With newspapers, teachers can engage students with contemporary informational texts that not only bring academics to life but also deepen learning by grounding it in real-world experiences. This curriculum helps teachers celebrate the power of newspapers as a vehicle for engagement as students read nonfiction text and learn about the world around them. In using the newspaper as a primary source, students learn how to navigate varied text features. Newspapers also help students understand and relate to current events, practice valuable reading and writing skills, and learn how to make informed decisions. Integration of newspapers is an excellent way to introduce students to expository text with the added benefit of teaching a variety of topics. News stories and columns about government, current events, technology, public affairs and international relations can be connected directly to subjects students are learning in their content-area classes while cultivating valuable literacy skills.
N the News
The daily newspaper is the textbook for this nine-unit curriculum, which gives middle- and high-school students an in-depth introduction to journalism.
Newspapers Maintain the Brain:
A Teacher's Guide for Using the Newspaper to Enhance Basic Skills. This guide features newspaper activities to enhance student skills in reading, writing, listening, speaking, math, social studies and science.
