To be fully engaged citizens in a world of local, national, and global events, our students need to be informed and able to sort critically through the ubiquitous flow of news and information. Growing up in Washington, DC, and having a father, grandfather, and uncle in the newspaper business, the news, particularly in print, largely influenced my perspective of the world. Remember “News Fridays” when we were challenged to find, cut out, and bring a newspaper article to class to be shared? Things were so simple then!
I write this article amid a flurry of news events that come to me not only in the newspaper but also as alerts on my phone, iPad, laptop, and digital reader. News about Supreme Court decisions on the affordable care act and marriage equality, news of tragedy and human triumph in Charleston, of a manhunt in New York, attacks in Paris, Tunisia, and Kuwait stream in with discussion and commentary online and on air. We need to equip our students to critically evaluate the flood of information, to make sense of the range of viewpoints, and to gather knowledge to build and support their own perspectives. Of the many resources featuring current events, there are two websites that offer classrooms tools to continue to do the critical thinking necessary to comprehend multiple perspectives.
Newsela offers nonfiction daily news across disciplines. High-interest topics are organized in categories: war and peace, science, kids, money, law, health, arts, and sports, with most recent articles featured on the home page. Each article is available at five Lexile reading levels (3rd–12th) to differentiate learning while having the whole class work on the same content. Advertisement-free articles are updated each day and can be read by students for free using an access code that is given when teachers “create a class.” In this open online version, students can annotate articles, take quizzes, and view their progress. The subscriber version, Newsela Pro, allows teachers to see who read the story, made notes, and took the quiz, tracking individual and class results aligning with Common Core Standards organized in an electronic binder. With Newsela Pro, teachers can customize and review writing prompts.
Other resources include the Newsela Learning and Support webpage to answer questions about the site and to provide resources and teaching ideas. “For Teachers, By Teachers,” a section within Classroom Resources, offers lesson plans and related materials submitted by teachers using Newsela. A Write Toolkit and a Text Sets Toolkit extend the possibilities of using Newsela articles. The text set is a collection of articles about a theme, topic, or related standard that teachers can use or create. Included are teacher-submitted lessons and connections to larger units. A “Pro/Con” text set offers articles that present multiple viewpoints where students could annotate and make comments in gathering notes to compare and contrast perspectives. The Write Toolkit guides teachers to insert writing prompts, offering rubrics and examples.
ProCon.org is an independent nonprofit organization founded to “promote critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship—and to educate without bias” as noted in their mission statement. Founder Steven Markoff provides extensive background information on the about us page. Varying perspectives on 53 controversial issues are presented in readings across content headings, including education, elections and presidents, health and medicine, and media and entertainment. Each issue contains a core question, background information, and specific pro and con arguments. The exploration of issues is student oriented, presenting text along with video, infographics, and political cartoons. The pro and con arguments include excerpts from major newspapers and quotes from experts and politicians. One issue raises the core question “Are Cell Phones Safe?” then offers “Did You Know?” facts from medical and science sources before presenting the pro–con arguments, the evolution of the cell phone science, and some videos related to popular culture. Sources are cited with links, often full-text PDFs.
Teachers can introduce students to the site’s approach to evaluating credibility of sources with their 1–5 star “theoretical expertise ranking.” A “Teachers’ Corner” offers lesson plans with related handouts and suggestions to make the activity easier or harder. Lessons are connected to Common Core, NCTE/IRA, and NCSS standards. Resources are provided that address teaching critical thinking. A collection of 50 illustrated quotes from Aristotle to Howard Zinn offers insights on critical thinking to be used to inspire students to continue to think deeply.
Consider ways to integrate Newsela and ProCon into your efforts to support students in thinking deeply and developing an informed voice. I have used both sites as resources for a class activity in building perspectives on cell phone use in the classroom. We start with a discussion web: “Should cell phones be allowed in the classroom?” We generate our own ideas, then jigsaw several articles, including those from these two sites that further inform on the issue, and then revisit the discussion web. This leads to further discussion and then more group work as we simulate a school board meeting, with each of six groups using what they have read and learned to perhaps step into the shoes of an opinion they may or may not hold and create a speech for or against cell phones in the classroom from the student, teacher, and parent perspectives. By thinking critically, reading, discussing, and evaluating ideas in text and beyond, students have improved their argument as informed citizens in the world.
Denise H. Stuart is a professor in the Curricular & Instructional Studies department at the University of Akron, Ohio. This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).