Tonight I participated in an informative Teacher Workshop and Tour of the New York Times Printing Press in Flushing, Queens. Lead by Shannon Doyne, I learned about the great resources available on the New York Times websites. In addition, I got to see first hand the process of bringing the news to print. Below are eight resources that anyone can access no matter your content area using The New York Times as an informational text and teaching tool.
1. Replica Edition of the New York Times – This looks like the print copy of the New York Times and is available at no charge for students and teachers to access today’s news as well as 30 days of back issues. Teachers can sign up for a subscription for the replica edition for the upcoming school year.
2. New York Times in Schools – For information about digital and classroom subscriptions of the New York Times, more about field trips and teacher workshops are all available at the in School site.
3. The Learning Network is one of my favorite blogs, filled with lesson plans, resources, student contents, and more. This is worth following as a blog and on Twitter for the abundance of resources and ideas that fill the web pages. Also, at “Any Day’s Times” you can find handouts and activities to use with any New York Times Newspaper.
4. The New York Times Online Edition – I seem to always find great articles to use with my students where it is about the economics of Katy Perry’s hit music in the Business Section or whether or not I should believe in the 10 second rule after a question was posed in the Science Times. Anyone can read the New York Times Online Edition without a subscription (I highly encourage you to get a subscription) but you only have access to ten articles per month.
5. Times Wire – If you are looking for news directly from the journalists themselves, here is where you are going to find it. We all know that news is a 24 hour cycle. The Times Wire gives you the news as it happens.
6. Times Topics is sort of like the New York Times own Wikipedia page. Choose a topic and you will find a summary, related articles from the Times, additional web resources, and any digital archives from as far back at 1851! If you do a Times Topic search on Mars you can find an article from the Times from 1924!
7. Timescasts are The NY Times own podcasts directly from the newsroom, presented by Times’ journalists. There are so many great resources here alone to use with your students.
8. After the Deadlines – Do you ever wonder what gets left out or does the conversation continue after the news goes to print? After Deadline is a blog on NY Times that allows journalists to extend their conversations, share stories that didn’t make it into the newspaper, and to make additions and corrections to articles that have already gone to print.
Share with us in the comments below how you use newspapers in your classroom as a teaching tool and you might be selected to receive a print edition of the New York Times Newspaper in Education Curriculum Guide, a 44-page curriculum with daily lesson activities and worksheets to teach current knowledge with the New York Times or Critical Reading and Writing Test-Prep Activities.