Good morning! This week, we open with a question for you — and we hope to include some of your answers in a forthcoming edition of this newsletter. — The Learning NetworkWhich of our resources were YOUR favorites this year?
Best writing prompts? Most engaging contest? Most puzzling “What’s Going On in This Picture?” Most instructive edition of “Ask a Journalist”? What resources on our site did you use this school year? Which worked best with your students? Why? Did any of our resources not work — and, if so, do you have advice for us? For a forthcoming edition of this newsletter, we’re using our own internal metrics to compile a “most popular” list to reflect on the 2025-26 school year, but we’d love to include some thoughts from you on any or all of the questions above. Let us know this week by emailing LNFeedback@nytimes.com. Recent Times reporting about education
More teaching resources from The Learning Network
Student activity: eight questions
What’s going on in this picture? Is it …
If your students can pick the right answer, they've already gotten one-eighth of the last Student News Quiz of the school year right! Before you go, see what teens are saying about the benefits and drawbacks of writing by hand.
At a time when more and more teachers are asking students to write by hand to counter the use of A.I., we asked students what they noticed about the cognitive and emotional differences between handwriting and typing. Here are some of their responses: Have you ever written an entire essay by hand? It’s like running a marathon with your dominant hand. I prefer the ease of writing on a keyboard any day — it is faster, easier, and allows me to save the notes in some form of online storage realm. — Channing, Glenbard West Personally, when I am writing by hand there is this feeling that typing on my computer cannot mimic, a more endearing feeling in which my thoughts feel more solidified and less disposable compared to being typed in a random file. — Zobia, NY For me, typing is for speed, and writing is for learning. I specifically choose to hand write because doing so forces my brain to process the information, then send it to my hand. — Nina, Glenbard West Imagine you receive a heartfelt text message from someone you care about, whether it be a family member, a friend, or a lover. You read it, smile, maybe tear up. You hope you could remember this kindness and love for many years to come. But what are you going to do, screenshot it, only for the picture to collect digital dust in your endless screenshot folder? You have nothing to commit to memory but the glowing screen and cold, sterile characters filling the text bubble. Now imagine that message was handwritten instead. You get to remember not only the warmth of the words themselves, but the way the writer curls their “y”s and dots their “i”s in that specific way, and the way their choice of paper reflects who they are. — Sage, Dougherty Valley High School We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to LNfeedback@nytimes.com. More next week.
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