A quick look at today’s New York Times and what might work this early in the school year for class news meetings:

• Front page, if you’re roughy grade six or above and your students have a basic understanding of DNA, problems at New York lab. Great discussion potential but will need teacher summary and basic understanding of laboratory work. I’m probably skipping.
• I’d skip the rest of the front page at this point because they need so much background info, but if you’ve already talked about Harvey, immigration or North Korea, these are all important stories.
• Index at bottom: farmers in Afghanistan has potential, but I’m not ready for it today because students would need a deeper understanding of the Taliban. Great for those who have some of this background, page 4.
• Also glancing at index: Yay, it’s science section day! Science of babies’ cries and more sleep making people nicer both look worth checking on.
• Rest of front section: page 8, “In Britain, Gender Debate Spills into children’s Aisle.” Great discussion potential! This early in school year, this could be perfect and I’m marking this to point out during my class meeting.
• Page 9, Royal Couple expecting Third baby: easy and fun, maybe worth noting, but not sure there’s much to discuss here.
• Page 13, AJ Watt’s mother helping organize Harvey donations in Wisconsin — yes, great relatable and positive way to work into Texas floods story/Harvey impact. Marking this, too.
• Page 14, great graphic on Harvey’s cost; pointing out and keeping fit when we talk about ways to organize data.
• Science section: yes, baby cry story looks great, would focus on the poor baby mice stripped of their ability to cry. And cool stuff about cries of other species — cheetah cubs chirp like birds and kangaroo cries sound like a cough! If we don’t talk about this today, I’ll probably save for another day.
• Also Science: awesome stuff about trigonometric table 3,000 years earlier than thought, how horses got the rut hooves and moose saving caribou (counterintuitive conservation), all briefs on page D2.

Will check back in with what we actually discuss and how it goes. Also up tonight to help get ready for tomorrow: role of the press and how reporters and editors work.