Newsela’s Lesson Sparks provide instructional supports and ideas for incorporating Newsela content into your classroom instruction. Lesson Sparks vary widely depending on the content they support, and might include ideas for teaching a novel, conducting an experiment, or facilitating a debate. Regardless of the topic of the content, Lesson Sparks help you bring it to life in your classroom.
Video - How Newsela Works: Lesson Sparks
Accessing Lesson Sparks
Lesson Sparks can only be found on larger collections or text sets.
Collections often have Lesson Sparks available at the Topic or Instructional Set level. In these cases, they will be found in the panel on the right, which can be closed and opened with the Resources button.
Using Lesson Sparks
To use Lesson Sparks in your classroom, take the following steps:
Find a Lesson Spark you’d like to use to facilitate your instruction.
Preview the activities and resources in the Lesson Spark.
Copy the suggested directions, by highlighting the instructions with your cursor and copying them.
Click “Create Assignment.”
Paste the suggested instructions into the “Assignment Directions” field.
Additional lesson ideas from teachers
If you’re looking for lesson ideas in addition to what are offered in Lesson Sparks, check out the Newselaverse Educator Community. You'll find content created by Newsela Certified Educators and ready for use in your classroom.
Lesson Sparks for Newsela ELA
Lesson Sparks for ELA subscribers are designed to enhance instruction in the ELA classroom. You’ll find the following kinds of content across our ELA Lesson Sparks:
Review: Standards and Skills
Lesson Sparks support skills-based instruction with key strategies for learners to practice skills on any of the selected texts.
Novel and Book Studies
Lesson Sparks offer teachers guidance for how to weave non-fiction, fiction, and poetry in with the main text they are covering. They also include reasons why the Newsela selections were chosen for this anchor text.
Writing Collection
Lesson Sparks offer full lessons to save teachers planning time when it comes to writing mini lessons or facilitating longer-form writing tasks for narrative, informational/explanatory, and persuasive or argumentative writing.
Decodable Texts for Older Readers
Lesson Sparks in Newsela ELA's Decodable Texts for Older Readers provide teacher guidance on how to implement decodables in their small group or remediation group, with a focus on a specific phonics skill, warm up activity to activate prior knowledge, explicit instruction, and more.
Additional Lesson Sparks
Discussions and Debates and Research Projects Collections also come with Lessons Sparks
Curriculum Complements
If your Curriculum Complement has Lesson Sparks, you'll see the resource panel on the right each time you open it.