OVERVIEW OF THE ASSIGNMENT
What's happening in the news today? And what do you think about it? As global citizens, we ask and answer these questions every day, and we need to teach our students how to articulate their own educated ideas about current events.
Students using The New York Times in the classroom will already know quite a bit about what's happening in the world, and after doing several of the summary assignments, they will be able to articulate the main points of the articles they are reading. Once they have a good understanding of the content of the articles, students need to learn how to respond to those articles effectively.
Writing letters to the editor requires students to directly address the article, so they must think critically about what they have read. Not only are the letters a good introduction to argumentation, they are an excellent way to teach students how to write a paragraph because they are concise but require clear support. They also have a clear purpose and audience.
OBJECTIVES
To learn to write a letter to the editor
To practice close reading
To practice MLA citation
To learn to write a paragraph
To begin learning about argumentation
To develop a clear response to current events
ADVICE FOR THE INSTRUCTOR
THE BENEFITS OF THIS ASSIGNMENT:
The brief assignment can be repeated again and again, which is beneficial for developing these skills.
Writing letters to the editor teaches students how to write a good paragraph. It is a good opportunity to introduce the importance of a topic sentences, transitions, and supporting details.
It helps students focus on purpose and audience.
It develops the basics of argumentation that will be necessary in the research paper.
THE CHALLENGES OF THIS ASSIGNMENT:
Like with the summaries, it works best with repetition, but it is important to construct a system that balances the benefits of having students write multiple letters per week with the limitations of teachers' ability to grade. Fortunately, this assignment can be structured so that teachers do not have to review each letter carefully. Rather, they can be graded as a portfolio for a completion grade. This has the benefit of encouraging students to do more reading and writing without requiring a huge amount of grading for the instructor.
TIP:
Encourage students to submit their letters to the editor to The New York Times. I tell them they get an automatic "A" in the class if they have a letter published in the NYT!
ACTIVITIES
Here are some possible steps for this assignment, but the way you teach it depends so heavily on how the letters to the editor will relate to the rest of the course.
Step 1: Read several letters to the editor as a class and analyze/discuss them.
You may want to track down the original article so that students can understand teh response. Be sure to explain to students that many of these letters are heavily edited so they may not represent a clear paragraph as you are requiring.
Step 2: Read an article/write an assigned summary as a class. Discuss it.
Select a meaty article that is certain to spark class discussion and provoke various points of view.
Step 3: Based on the discussion have students write a one sentence, focused response to the article.
This will become the topic sentence of their letter.
Step 4: Have students choose two specific examples to support their main idea.
Step 5: Put it together following the guidelines in the handout.
COMBINING THE LETTERS WITH OTHER ASSIGNMENTS
Summaries: These provide an excellent basis for writing good letters.
Argumentative research paper: The letters (and summaries) can build to an argumentative research paper. Students can be required to pick a research topic or general focus and write summaries of related articles, culminating in their research paper. This has been incredibly successful in our experience. Students come to the research paper much more informed and because of the experience with the letters, they have practiced making an argument.
ASSIGNING ARTICLES VS. ALLOWING STUDENTS TO CHOOSE
Allow students to pick articles that interest them: Students love choosing their own articles. Many of them are inexperienced at selecting reading material, and they find it both overwhelming and exciting to be able to pick their own. Plus, it fosters a love of independent reading of the newspaper.
Assign certain topics for students to follow: Rather than giving them free reign of the whole paper, select a topic or topics that you want them to read. Education is a reliable topic. Technology. Politics. Have them follow a specific country or even a particular reporter.
Allow students to choose articles for the class: Although we have not yet experimented with this, it could provide a good way to develop a class anthology in reverse. By having students select the reading material, it ensures that the class will be talking about the same ideas while still allowing some choice and input from the readers.
Choose the articles yourself: If you choose the articles, you can guide the class to discuss ideas that are relevant to what is happening in the class.
A mixture!: This is the best way to give students a rounded perspective of the newspaper.
HANDOUTS FOR LETTER TO THE EDITOR UNIT
There are two attachments below:
Letter to the editor assignment
Letter to the editor sample
***SCROLL DOWN TO "ATTACHMENTS" TO ACCESS HANDOUTS!***