You either like them or you hate them, but everyone has to do them. Articles of the Week have become a common thing in English classes of every grade level. There are a few reasons why students do them.
“I think the big thing there is that they write and when you’re writing over a book, it takes a while for you to read, so reading a simple article is much faster to get that writing response,” English teacher Delta Fajardo said.
David Witt, also an English teacher, agrees with Fajardo, but adds his own ideas.
“They make students more aware of things that are going on in the world that could connect to the books and also to work on specific writing skills, especially with non-fiction, because we do so much work with fiction, and a non-fiction background is important,” Witt said.
To students, these articles may seem to be chosen at random, but each teacher has their own system for picking them out.
“I look for something that sounds interesting, something that will get a reaction from the students one way or the other. Then they can agree or disagree with it. Then I try to switch it up from week to week with something that has to do with how to improve your life one week then maybe something science related the next week or a current events story,” English teacher Emily Dunbar
Dunbar also had a few pointers on how to start an Article of the Week for all the rookies.
“The first step in writing the Article of the Week starts with how you read the Article of the Week: reading the article and annotating the text. Most teachers have probably gone through highlighting with different colors; green for your topic, yellow for the big ideas, and then pink for your supporting details. That will help you see the text structure and as you’re writing you should make any notes of things that stick out to you that are confusing, that strike you as interesting or weird and mark that. Or if there is something you find that you can connect to your own life you want to mark that while you’re reading, so that when you go back to write you have all of these ideas.”
With these words of wisdom, anyone can and should be able to do far better on their next Article of the Week, whether it is their first time or an experienced article writer.
