Newsela has not been around for long, but the company has become quite popular as a way for educators to meet the literacy needs of classrooms serving a wide range of reading levels. The service offers the same “news” stories written at multiple reading levels.
Newsela now offers an additional approach that meets the challenges of what some have described as a “new literacy”. Most of us increasing turn to online resources to meet our information needs and we locate this information using search. What search returns are multiple hits and we tend to fashion an understanding from a review of several of these sources. In keeping with this notion that we build a personal understanding by combining information from multiple sources, Newsela now provides a resource called Paired Texts. Two articles that address a common theme are provided. Students are provided a writing prompt that is best addressed by combining information from the two resources.
As far as I can tell, the articles are selected to provide different information and not contradictory perspectives. This would seem to be the next step – what do you do when a search provides information that is not consistent and you are asked to take a position?
