How to Teach With a New York Times Article
Susan Behrens, Ph.D. Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders Marymount Manhattan College
Strategies connected to reading lessons: Anticipating the article: making predictions based on the headline
Vocabulary in context: finding roots, prefixes, suffixes; substitution of unfamiliar words with synonyms
Look-alike words: e.g., breathe vs. breath, tow vs. toe,
Figures of speech and other literary devices: idioms, metaphors, puns, irony, acronyms
After each paragraph, think of 1-2 questions that are raised. Look to see where (and if) those questions are answered. What is the pattern of question/answer in this article? Key to overall organization. Also helps with note-taking.
Strategies connected to writing lessons: Summarizing: in margin, summarize in own words, in one sentence, the main idea of the paragraph. Create backwards outline.
Paraphrasing: find where sources are quoted directly (vs. indirectly). Change former to latter. Take the first paragraph and put in your own words. Reword it so that you are explaining to a peer; to a younger student; in an assigned essay; in a formal oral report.
Rewrite the article using a different organization.
Register: Writing for different audiences, levels of understanding; alternating between formal and informal style.
Synthesizing: connect the article in one way to a text you are working on for a content course in college. Write a “comparison/contrast” paragraph. Using links embedded in digital article: click on the links in the article. What additional information do you encounter? Expand the article by adding to each paragraph that contains a link.
EXAMPLE OF A MARKED-UP ARTICLE
New Moon Probe Raises Questions About What to Do Next in Space By CAROLINE CHEN http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/us/new-moon-probe-raises-questions-about-what-to-do- next-in-space.html
[What are three points you think this article will make? Do you think this article will raise questions? Answer questions? Compare viewpoints? Etc.]
The last moon mission on NASA’s current schedule — a small, unmanned spacecraft that will study moon dust and the lunar atmosphere — is scheduled to launch on Friday from Wallops Island, Va., elating scientists who study the moon but highlighting political questions about what NASA should do next.
[What is the main idea of the opening paragraph, put in your own words? What information do you think is being foreshadowed and will follow in the article, based on paragraph #1? What vocabulary words would you want to look up? e.g., elating. Click on the link for NASA; what additional information would work in this paragraph? Why did the reporter choose a link instead of including that information?]
The Smart Car-size spacecraft, which NASA calls the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, will take 30 days to get into orbit around the moon, spend the next 30 days checking its equipment and proceed with scientific work for 100 days, searching for water molecules in the atmosphere and gathering data about the curious substance known as lunar dust. Then the probe, which goes by the acronym Ladee (pronounced laddie), will take a death plunge into the rocky surface of the subject it is studying.
[As with paragraph #1, try to anticipate what information the article will convey based on this paragraph. Why do you think NASA created the acronym Ladee for their spacecraft?]
The results of the scientific program could be helpful in preparing for future manned missions to the moon. Although NASA currently does not have such plans, some members of Congress have called on the space agency to return to the moon rather than pursuing its current space objectives.
[The paragraph above ends with a difference of opinion. In your own words, state each side. As you read the rest of the article, jot down data that each side uses to support its viewpoint.] Although there is wide agreement that NASA should ultimately aim for a manned flight to Mars, that goal is far off. The more immediate plan, which has been criticized on Capitol Hill, is to capture an asteroid and tow it closer to home so astronauts can visit it.
[Reflect on the plan to tow an asteroid closer to earth. What associations do you have with this plan, from popular culture and/or history? Look at the word ‘tow’ and consider other contexts in which this word is used. Also consider the expression “to toe the line”; some people think the word is “tow” in that idiom. Reflect on why there would be confusion.]
But NASA has continued sending unmanned spacecraft to the moon; the coming mission will be the third to go there in five years. While scientists are excited about what the experiment may yield, they are also concerned about the absence of future moon voyages on NASA’s schedule.
“If you’re going to fly this mission with the goal of understanding the atmosphere and how dust might affect future human missions, and you don’t have the future human missions, then part of the reason for the mission disappears,” said David Kring, senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, a NASA-financed research institute in Houston.
[Notice that there is a direct quotation in the paragraph above. Why do you think the reporter decided to use Kring’s actual words? Find examples where the article paraphrases sources. What is the difference to you as a reader? How would the reporter decide to quote directly or indirectly? How would you paraphrase this direct quote?]
Even if NASA sits on the sidelines, traffic to the moon will be busy. China announced last week that it would land its first exploratory rover on the moon by the end of the year. India, Japan, Russia and the European Space Agency also have unmanned missions in the works. And Google is sponsoring a competition called the Lunar X Prize, offering up to $20 million to the first company that can send a robotic spacecraft to the moon by 2015 and make it perform certain tasks.
[Consider the expression “sits on the sidelines” in the paragraph above. How literal vs. figurative is this usage? Try to find other figures of speech and literary devices in this article. In the name Lunar X Prize, what is the function of X? Lunar is the adjective form of moon. How are the two words related? Find other adjective/noun pairs in this article; noun/verb pairs.]
The Ladee spacecraft was conceived when NASA was also planning new manned missions to the moon, which would have been the first since 1972. But the Obama administration canceled that program, called Constellation, in 2010, calling it over budget and behind schedule. Ladee stayed in the pipeline.
The spacecraft will search for water in the very thin lunar atmosphere, which is estimated to be 1/100,000th the density of Earth’s, perhaps similar to Mercury’s. Scientists want to find out how the ice on the moon’s poles managed to get there, said Richard Elphic, project scientist for the mission. They speculate that water molecules in the moon’s atmosphere may have migrated toward the poles and frozen in place, he said.
Evidence of water below the moon’s surface was discovered in recent years by a NASA-financed instrument aboard an Indian spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1. Data collected from the coming mission could help complete the picture of the moon’s water cycle, Dr. Elphic said.
The orbiter will also examine the movements of lunar dust. “Dust” is a bit of a misnomer, the scientists said: the crushed debris is extremely fine but also has jagged, sharp edges, since there is no wind or water on the moon’s surface to wear it down.
[What is the meaning of “misnomer”? Analyze the word into affixes and root. Try to rewrite the sentence using a synonym. In your own words but based on information in this paragraph, why is “dust” not an accurate word?]
“It’s certainly more annoying than terrestrial dust,” said Sarah Noble, program scientist for the mission. “It’s like shards of glass, and it sticks to everything. If it gets into your eyes or your skin, it’s abrasive and it hurts. It also really gums up machinery.”
[Notice that “terrestrial” is an adjective connected to the noun “Earth.” (See lunar and moon, above.) Why is Earth capitalized? Do you ever see it not capitalized? “Gums up” is an informal expression meaning what? Why does the source use such informality? Change the wording so that it is more formal in style.]
The dust poses a risk to robots and humans alike, as it can wreak havoc on equipment and spacesuits. Understanding the way the dust moves through the atmosphere will help scientists better prepare for longer missions on the moon, Dr. Elphic said.
[Consider the use of the preposition in the phrase “longer missions on the moon.” How would the meaning differ if the reporter wrote “longer missions to the moon”? Can you think of other expressions that change meaning with a change in a small word like a preposition? Consider “on sale” and “for sale,” for example. Where in this article might there be changes of prepositions without changes in meaning?]
Not everyone agrees that dust is a major concern. “Dust on the lunar surface does not pose a serious risk to future lunar exploration,” Dr. Kring said, pointing out that astronauts managed to survive the dust without major problems. But he still saw value in the dust inquiry, saying, “We always want to reduce the risk, and to understand the dust phenomenon in and of itself is worthwhile.”
NASA said the launching would break technological ground. Previously, spacecraft were custom-made for each mission and the models were not reusable. But this spacecraft was designed for assembly-line production, so that future missions could save money by using identical components.
[What part of speech in the paragraph above is “launching”? Find other words in this article that function as both nouns and verbs, and explain how the writer signals the correct grammatical function through the context.]
The spacecraft’s design and construction cost $125 million out of a mission price of $250 million, said Dwayne Brown, a NASA spokesman. If the same design were used again, Mr. Brown said, NASA estimates that the cost would drop to $90 million for the first spacecraft and then over time to $55 million each. At the moment, though, NASA does not have other projects lined up to reuse the model, he said.
The spacecraft will ride on the maiden voyage of the Minotaur V rocket built by the Orbital Sciences Corporation, one of several private contractors NASA has turned to in recent years to supply rockets for its missions. The launching will be the first lunar mission for Orbital, as well as the first moon journey departing from Wallops Island.
[How is the meaning of the word “maiden” altered when used in the expression “maiden voyage,” as in the paragraph above? What other wording could the reporter use? Is “maiden” a word you encounter in speech? In writing? In what contexts?]
In 2009 and 2011, Orbital lost two NASA satellites in failed launching of its Taurus XL rocket, costing the agency more than $600 million.
For this mission to succeed, Ladee will need to launch, separate from the Minotaur V, and insert itself into lunar orbit. Then, NASA will be able to begin its experiments. “Once we’re on the moon, we’ll breathe a big sigh of relief,” Dr. Noble said.
[After jotting down a sentence next to each paragraph that summarizes its content, you have a backwards outline. What is the overall organization of this article? Could it be reorganized? Write a one-paragraph summary of the article. What information did you have to omit? How did you choose? Now rewrite that summary paragraph so it works as an oral report. What differences are there in the written and the spoken forms?]