Writing to Inform and Make Arguments

Common Core Practice | A King's Skeleton, a Musical Mystery, a Territorial Dispute Andrew Testa for The New York TimesA council worker fixed a camera at the parking lot in Leicester, England, where archaeologists unearthed a skeleton, very likely Richard III’s, amid the remains of an ancient priory. Go to related article » Each Friday we post three short tasks that Sarah Gross and Jonathan Olsen, New Jersey team-teachers, tried that week with their ninth-grade humanities students. In their classroom, The New York Times is part of every day’s lesson plan, and, as they described in our initial post, they begin most mornings with quick exercises like the ones you see below. Of course, this feature is just one of many ways we suggest using The Times, a daily flood of “informational text,” to teach and learn. We also hope you’ll encourage students to choose their own Times articles (or multimedia) to read and write about. Let us know what you think. Common Core Practice Tasks | Week of Sept. 24 – 28, 2012 Informative Writing Before you do the task, you might…. Narrative Writing