In our webinar on December 15, 2020, Chippewa River Writing Project teacher consultant and Okemos High School teacher Dr. Sharon Murchie (@smurchies) talked about her work with The New York Times Learning Network.
Dr. Murchie’s presentation slides with all of these links can be found here.
Dr. Murchie started us off by letting us know that high school students can get the NY Times for free from now until September 2021! She then introduced us to the seven authentic writing units that are available for teachers that include mentor texts, examples, resources, contests, and videos that help you give your students amazing writing opportunities. Additionally, Dr. Murchie talked about countless resources and activities your students have available for free from The New York Times:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What is going on in this graph?
- Lesson of the Day
- Word of the Day
- Current Events
- Student Opinion Section
- Picture Prompts
- Weekly News Quizzes
- Weekly Country Quizzes
- Contests
These are great engagement activities for students to practice inferences, start writing, and get kids thinking and discussing current events
Dr. Murchie also introduced us to The New Times’ Hyper-Nation series as part of the Race, Racism and Racial Justice Resources as a way to help teach some of this difficult race and cultural issues that are hard to start conversations/discussions with our students. She brought up her work with the Learning Network using modern and engaging mentor texts in a project she has called “Writing Our Own Lives.” Her lesson has students pick their own reading list of short mentor texts from The New York Times “Lives” column. She wanted to have students write for real world audiences and engage with real world stories to help them not only become better writers but also better writers for her senior’s Common App work. Dr. Murchie shared her journey this far about how this has goin in her classroom this year.
Finally, Dr. Murchie introduced us to some of the ideas she has for her future teaching from her work with the Times. First are the mentor texts that the Times offers as part of a series called “Annotated by the Author’s” where the authors talk about their craft and choices. This is a powerful opportunity for students to see and hear other writers and student writer’s think and make choices in an authentic way. Dr. Murchie discusses wanting to discuss a video series called “A Conversation on Race” that will further help with some of those difficult conversations to have with students. And last but not least, she gave us an idea for your substitute teacher folder in 550 potential writing topics from the Times as well.
If your mind is blown by all these resources, Dr. Murchie recommends starting with ‘What is going on in this picture?’ and then work to apply it to writing to start.
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