Good morning! This week we have a fun classroom idea from an eighth grade English teacher; a rich collection of resources for Black History Month, and more. — The Learning NetworkUsing a Times video series as a model, put your students in the director’s chair.
“If you’re looking for a way to connect students’ love of movies with meaningful literacy work, The New York Times’s ‘Anatomy of a Scene’ is a powerful instructional tool,” writes Michele Haiken, an English teacher in Rye, N.Y., in our latest edition of Great Ideas From Readers. Ms. Haiken takes us step-by-step through how she uses these short, accessible videos as mentor texts and mini-lessons for her eighth grade students. Try it yourself and tell us what happens! Recent Times reporting about schools
More teaching resources from The Learning Network
An activity for your students: celebrate Black History Month
Bring the wealth of Black history and culture into your classroom with help from this collection of Times articles, essays, photographs, videos, infographics and more. It begins with the 1857 Times front page about the Dred Scott decision and continues through today — all of it free as long as you access each link from our site. You’ll see that our collection is robust, but we also know it’s not complete. Are there important Times articles or features about Black history that you’d like to see added? Please let us know. Before you go, see what teens are saying about altering their appearances online.
Is it OK to alter photos of yourself to look better online? We invited teenagers to weigh in on this question, inspired by a similar query to The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist advice column. Here is a taste of the conversation: I believe that we are reaching the stage where we are finding the virtual representation of ourselves much more important than the real one. — Michael, Glenbard West HS I think the actual editing of the photos isn’t the issue, the lack of disclaimer is the problem. So, yes I think it’s OK to alter and edit your photos however you please, as long as you state that the photo is edited. — Ronnie, Templeton High School I love loving myself. I bet you love loving yourself, too. Still, would I be happy seeing myself as fake? Would you? In my opinion, I hate being fake. My mom always uses filters — yeah, great for her, but when she starts using them on me? I feel weird. Horrible, even. It doesn’t look like me, and I certainly don’t feel like whoever it is in that photo. — Yaeli, Julia R. Masterman, Philadelphia PA Before the internet, teen girls were comparing themselves to equally staged and altered images of movie stars and models who pay and are paid fortunes to look that way. The real question is, why are beauty standards for women ridiculous enough to demand bending reality? Because that misogynist reality hasn’t changed, A.I. editing tools are just its latest manifestation. — Rainy, Philadelphia, PA We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to LNfeedback@nytimes.com. More next week.
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