Teachers

Newspapers in Your Classroom

There are any number of ways to use newspapers in your classroom, beginning as early as Grade 4, when social studies students “develop questions about New York” and “analyze different forms of evidence used to make meaning,” according to the Scope and Sequence. Beyond social studies, students could use newspapers to observe changes over time in geography, advertisements, living costs, climate, and so on. Below are seven ideas that could be augmented across grade levels.

1. Location Exploration

Students find neighborhoods and landmarks, and compare their historical and current day conditions.

Tasks could include:

Read an article about the location.
Describe an event that took place there.
Write about how the location has changed over time.
Find pictures of the location in the NYPL digital collections.
Find a map in the digital collections, and compare it to a Google view today.
Visit the location, and consider what buildings, streets, and so on might have been

there at the time, and what has been added or removed since then.

2. Time-Traveling Superheroes

Students find articles that describe historical problems, and determine how they would solve them with superhero capabilities. Tasks could include:

Find and share historical problems, and vote for the worst one.
Describe a current-day role that could solve the problem if transported back in time. Roles could include crime fighters, rescuers, builders, mind readers, etc.
Describe your own spin on the role: how you would make it you.
Recreate the story using photos, including from NYPL digital collections.
Project each story on a classroom smartboard or other surface.
Create costumes and props to enhance the presentation.

3. It’s your Birthday!

Students write imaginative memoirs, based on research, about how they would have celebrated their birthdays in a historical era. Tasks could include:

Identify a newspaper published on your birthday, but in a prior year.
Summarize the events of the day.
Imagine what your birthday party would have been like on that day, and write it as though it actually happened.
Describe where it was, what happened, what people were wearing, what presents you received, and so on, based on historical advertisements.
Describe how your yesteryear party would be different than your this-year party.
Reflect on which party you would prefer.

4. Discrimination Detective

Students search historical newspapers for evidence of discrimination, and consider what has and has not changed. Tasks could include:

Look through historical articles and ads for examples of discrimination, such as

job advertised toward a particular gender or race, sports scores from segregated leagues, descriptions of nations and their citizens in international news, and reports on political issues related to immigration.

List which acts would and would not be allowed today.
Discuss how things have and have not changed, and whether there was more or less discrimination at different times

Help wanted ad, 1921, Staten Island Advance.

Article ,The Staten Island Leader, September 05, 1924, Page 1

5. Living in the Past

Students create profiles, based on research, of who they would have been in a past era. Tasks could include:

Choose or be assigned a historical year, and find one or more newspapers from that year.
Look for a job, and describe your daily routine, including your commute.
Search through ads for things you would have owned, clothes you would have worn, etc.
Describe your home life, including where you would have bought groceries, what they might

have been, what you would have done for fun on weekends, etc.

6. On the Homefront

Students look at historical events through the eyes of their community at the time. Tasks could include:

Choose an event to consider - the Spanish-American War, WWI, a presidential

election, etc.

Read a national perspective of the event in a history textbook or other source.
Read a local perspective of the event, and compare it to the national one.

7. Style of the Times

Students rewrite historical stories from a current day perspective. Tasks could include:

Find a juicy story in a historic newspaper.
Identify the view points and uses of language that seem antiquated.
Compare the story's language to that of a current-day one.
Rewrite the story as though it will be published tomorrow.

8. Staten Island Sports

Staten Island has always hosted a vibrant sporting scene. From the "World Series" veteran major league baseball team, The NY Metropolitans, with their home field at St. George, to the "Stapletons," a former NFL franchise, to hosting the America's Cup sailing races, to the introduction of tennis to the United States, Staten Island was a major sports destination in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The newspapers contained here also tell the stories of school, company, and neighborhood athletic contests. Sports is a topic that can interest students who may not be excited by more conventional historical themes.

Print a set of modern Staten Island Metropolitans baseball cards, derived from historical newspaper clippings and other sources, from the NYPL_baseball_cards_SI_Metropolitans.pdf file below.
Older schools can track the history of their own student teams in Island sports coverage.
Compare how historical sports coverage differs from modern coverage
Study the segregation of Island sports through the activities of "colored" and "negro" teams. The segregated teams often played the white teams.
Map the sports teams of Staten Island by school, neighborhood, home field and the years the teams were active.
Make your own set of collector cards - famous people, landmarks, ferryboats, old advertisements...

NYPL_baseball_cards_SI_Metropolitans.pdf

Print your own set of Staten Island Mets Cards above. (Modern cards using historical images and text from newspapers and other historical materials.)

Sample Staten Island Mets Card (front and back) Featuring the Mets' grandstands at St. George on the back.

9. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Project Packet

Download a print-friendly primary source packet from the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Connections program with student questions and several historical newspaper articles, dating back to 1947, highlighting the issues raised by the construction and its affect on local communities.

Want to let people know about this website? Print the .pdf flier file from the link at the bottom of this page and hang it in your library, classroom, senior center, museum or wherever people might be interested in learning more about Staten Island.

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