The students will read about the chemical spill in the Elk River in West Virginia, and use the Learning Network handout, "The 5 W"™s and an H" to summarize the story.

Then, the students can work in pairs to write a script for an evening news segment about the chemical spill, focusing on how the community has been affected, what questions the spill raises, and when the water will be safe to use again.

This lesson pairs a Times article about the historical resonance of Europe's refugee crisis with an excerpt from "Defying the Nazis" that chronicles the Sharp's relief and rescue mission in 1939. Together, these texts raise important questions about whether there are "lessons" of history and invite reflection on how individuals and governments choose to respond to those in need.

Celebrate "Women's History Month" through this edition of Text to Text in collaboration with the Makers project (a digital and broadcast initiative from AOL and PBS that showcases stories of groundbreaking women from all walks of life. Students will view video clips, compare texts, answer key questions, and engage a variety of "Going Further" exercises.

The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content. Teachers can use or adapt our lessons across subject areas and levels or contribute their own ideas. Students can respond to our Opinion questions, take our News Quizzes, learn the Word of the Day, try our Test Yourself questions, enter contests, do crosswords, learn about what happened on this day in history, answer 6 Q's About the News, speculate on "What's Going On in This Picture?" or read our Poetry Pairings.

This lesson presents two sides of a debate about Magna Carta's significance. Students read an Op-Ed essay in The Times and an essay in the Wall Street Journal, and decide what they think: Is the document worthy of celebrating 800 years later? Or is its importance just a myth?

This lesson focuses on the pairing of one NY Times article about the Holocaust with a powerful literary passage from the 2005 novel "The Book Thief.' The novel, set during WWII in Germany, is the story of a girl who shares her stolen books with neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. The pairing of the book and article leads students to address the question, "How should the story of the Holocaust be told to young people today?"

This lesson compares the moment of euphoria when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 with today's Berlin, a transformed city in which many do not remember the oppressive divisions of the past. In follow-up activities, students can evaluate the choices made since 1989 and decide if the Cold War is really over.

"The Scarlet Letter" is full of famous passages that probe themes like sin, redemption, guilt, revenge, and hypocrisy as they relate to female sexuality. At the same time, our modern-day news is full of stories that highlight the sexual double-standard that exists in our society between men and women. The extent to which this double-standard exists is the focus of this lesson, which uses an excerpt from Hawthorn's classic and an op-ed about once-convicted murderess Amanda Knox.

Students are presented with a paired critical reading activity uses excertps from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and a New York Times article "˜History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names"™ to exlplore the deep and painful history of racial injustice in the south. Included are close fiction/non-fiction analysis, varied media resources, and writing assignments.

In this resource from the New York Times, a paired critical reading activity uses excertps from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and a New York Times article ‘History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names’ to exlplore the deep and painful history of racial injustice in the south. Included are close fiction/non-fiction analysis, varied media resources, and writing assignments.

The film "12 Years a Slave" is based on the 1853 slave narrative of the same name. This lesson pairs an excerpt from the original text by Solomon Northup with a recent Times article that discusses Mr. Northup's narrative in the context of the antislavery literary genre. In studying these two texts together, students examine what Northup's narrative reveals about the institution of slavery.

Students explore the commercial roots of the American Dream and analyze a historical or literary text that supports this philosophy in conversation with an Op-Ed column.

In this lesson, students explore the commercial roots of the American Dream and analyze a historical or literary text that supports this philosophy in conversation with an Op-Ed column.

Students explore different facets of this historic relationship and give students a chance to predict what might come next. Students can begin by taking a journey across Cuba, compare it with life in their own hometown, and take part in a role-playing exercise on different perspectives in the United States-Cuba relationship

Students are invited to explore the cultural offerings around them "” from architecture to books, dance, fashion, film, food, music, theater, TV and video games "” and write reviews about what they experience. The New York Times models along with advice from current Times critics to help them through the process.

Students learn about the causes and effects of marijuana addiction and research how THC affects different areas of the brain. They then synthesize their knowledge by creating print advertisements that inform teenagers about the physiological dangers of marijuana addiction.

This lesson from the New York Times offers suggestions for making TheTimes a low-stress part of your classroom routine, followed by literacy strategies to help address the Standards before, during, and after reading Times content with your students.

Suggestions for making TheTimes a low-stress part of your classroom routine, followed by literacy strategies to help address the Standards before, during, and after reading Times content with your students.

Students will consider what they already know about underage drinking and create mock Web sites and links that explore the topic further.

Students will compare and contrast Times Topics pages with Wikipedia as potential sources of information and use Times Topics pages to tackle classroom research questions.

Students examine the language used in music reviews to describe world music and explore the relationship between music and culture. They will then write a description of a kind of American music they know well and detail its cultural roots and significance.