New lessons on fairness, crisis coverage,
media literacy and more for NIE Week

March 4-8 marks Newspaper In Education Week, the annual celebration of newspapers as a classroom resource across a variety of subjects.

This year, the American Press Institute and the Newseum have teamed up to deliver a new, three-unit curriculum with six lessons aligned to Common Core State Standards. Lessons focus on the following topics:

• Newspapers in Your Life – What’s News Where? and The First Rough Draft of Histor

• In the Newsroom – The Fairness Formula and Planning for the Unpredictable

• Media Literacy – Where News Comes From and Evaluating the News

If you’re not familiar with API and the Newseum, here’s a little background. In 2012, the former Newspaper Association of America Foundation was merged into the American Press Institute. API, now headquartered at NAA in Arlington, Va., is continuing the NAA Foundation’s long tradition of producing new curriculum materials in honor of NIE Week. The Newseum, the “museum of news” located in Washington, D.C., also has a tradition of providing educational resources for teachers.

“With so many sources of news and information at their disposal, young people more than ever need to be educated media consumers,” API Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel said in a news release. “This curriculum is designed to help educators accomplish that. It makes use of original, professional journalism produced by local newspapers and combines it with the Newseum’s educational resources for something that is timely, real and proven in schools.”

Lessons in the NIE Week 2013 curriculum incorporate existing Newseum resources, such as the Today’s Front Pages gallery. They are geared toward middle- and high-school students, but include extension activities for elementary students. Although they are being released for NIE Week, lessons are “evergreen” in terms of subject matter and can be used anytime.

Need more lessons aligned to Common Core? Check out High Five, an integrated, three-unit curriculum that includes reading, writing, journalism, grammar, linguistics and visual literacy. All materials are age-appropriate for middle-school students. The curriculum uses the daily newspaper as a textbook and information source.

Marina Hendricks, a member of the SPRC, is director of communications at NAA and former manager of the NAA Foundation.