To access Newsela Writing assignments from within Canvas, students need to first authenticate their login by clicking the course link, and only then clicking the assignment link. If they skip the step of clicking the course link prior to clicking the assignment link, they aren't fully authenticated in Newsela and their assignments might look 'broken' or appear inaccessible.
To fix this, students need to:
Log into Canvas.
Click the Newsela/Newsela Writing course link (from the left-side navigation bar) to authenticate the Newsela login
Then return to Canvas and open the assignment link
When sessions expire (or if a student logs out), they must re-click the course link before assignments will work again.