What is Independent Student Work in Newsela?
Students and teachers often use Newsela for various kinds of independent work, including choice reading and research projects.
Newsela considers any work that is not tied to an assignment created by a teacher for a Newsela classroom independent work.
Any time a student completes work in Newsela, it is tied to their account. All of a student's teachers with subscriptions can view a student's completed assigned and independent work in their Classroom Data Reports.
Multi-article Assignments for Independent Choice
As a teacher, you can add multiple articles to an assignment that you can then assign to your classes on Newsela. This allows you to curate a wide selection of articles and give students choices on what they’d like to read.
You can review work from these assignments in the Assignments tab of your Binder.
Assign Multiple Articles from A Text Set
Find a Text Set you want to assign and click Create Assignment.
This will take you to the assignment page, where you select the class (or classes) for the assignment. You’ll also see three optional steps: Adding instructions, adjusting the reading level your students will see, and removing articles.
Click Assign Now.
Assign Multiple Stand-Alone Articles
Search or browse Newsela for content that aligns to the subject you'd like to teach.
Click an article, and click
Create Assignment.
This will take you to the assignment page, where you select the class (or classes) for the assignment. You’ll also see three optional steps: Adding instructions, adjusting the reading level your students will see, and removing articles.
Click Assign Now.
Search or browse for additional articles to locate and vet assignment-appropriate content.
Click the down arrow next to the blue "Assign" button, and select "Add to Assignment."
Select the assignment to which this article relates.
Review Independent Work
The Reading Summary tab of your Classroom Data Report gives you insight into everything that your students are reading, including assignments you've created and everything else that your students are reading on Newsela.
Review Independent Reading
Click on Reports at the top of the page
Select Classroom Data from the dropdown menu
Scroll down to the Reading Activity section
Click a student's name to view their individual Reading Summary.
In the Reading Activity section, you will see a table showing their full reading activity list.
Scroll down and click a class name or Independent Reading to see a row for each article on which they have completed work.
In an article row, click on an activity to review it in more detail on the article page. For a shortcut to resetting the quiz score or requesting a writing response revision, click the three dots on the right side.
Select the Power Words tab to view of the words the student has practiced.
Review Independent Writing
To review independent writing, students must have selected to submit their work to your class. This writing assignment can be found through the above pathway.