Participating in an online discussion on events and issues in the news not only gives students a forum, but it also helps them build critical thinking, writing and news literacy skills and provides an opportunity to write for an authentic audience.We launched our daily Student Opinion feature last October, when we moved to the blog format, to create a “safe space” on NYTimes.com – and on the Internet overall – for students 13 and older to voice their views on the news.
In a piece for the National Writing Project, Anne Rodier argues that students “have to believe that what they have to say is important enough to bother writing. They have to experience writing for real audiences before they will know that writing can bring them power.”
Below are 10 ideas for using Student Opinion to enable your student...
But first, a few notes and tips:
- Make sure to read and share with students the commenting guidelinesfor The Learning Network and all of NYTimes.com.
- All student comments must be signed with a first name (and ONLY a first name), but we cannot post the full name and location of your school, due to privacy concerns. You might give students a code, such as your classroom number or section, (for example, Rachel221 or Simon3B) so your students, and you, can tell which posts are written by class members.
- You can easily find any weekday’s Student Opinion question by visiting the blog, or you can scroll through past posts by clicking on theStudent Opinion category. There are three other ways to stay on top of the latest posts: follow us on Twitter, sign up to receive our daily e-mail or get an RSS feed of our posts.
- If you have computer access in school, students might participate in Student Opinion in one of several ways: regularly (once a week, say), as major issues of concern arise and/or when our posts contain curriculum-related questions. It could also be assigned as a meaningful activity whenever a substitute is covering your class.
