Learning Network: Teach writing with The New York Times

August 7, 2026

Good morning! We just published our 2026-27 writing curriculum! — The Learning Network

Teach Writing With The New York Times

A comic where, in the first panel, labeled "Brain Fog," a person is struggling to write. In the second panel, labeled "Brainstorm," the figure is starting to draft. In the third and final panel, labeled "Brainbow," the person is proudly looking at a finished page while the rest of the room is in disarray.

Grant Snider

What can the news, features, essays, interviews, photos, videos, podcasts and graphics in The New York Times teach your students about composing for a global audience? So much, we hope, that the units we detail in our 2026-27 writing curriculum are just a beginning. Each focuses on a different genre or type of work that your students can find not just in The Times but in all kinds of real-world sources.

We hope our curriculum will offer teenagers confirmation that they have valuable things to say, choices in how to say them and a global audience eager to listen. Through the opportunities for publication woven into each unit, we want to encourage students to go beyond simply consuming media to becoming creators themselves.

Recent Times reporting about schools

An Opinion essay argues that the Boy Scouts let in girls almost a decade ago, and “it’s been a triumph.”
Students at an H.B.C.U. objected to the school’s new dress code that banned bonnets and durags, saying it misunderstood the campus culture.
“I’m begging you: never write with A.I.,” pleads the Opinion columnist Bret Stephens.
An upstart youth movement in India declared a rare victory over its government following weeks of demonstrations demanding accountability over a botched medical school exam.
The Times Editorial Board writes that while summer camp has become a luxury, this nonprofit sends kids for free.

This week’s Summer Reading Contest winners

From 1,241 submissions, we chose a video by Griffin Gallo and an essay by Cristina Ramirez .

Mr. Gallo, 17, from New York City reacts to the article “T. Rex Fossil Sells for $50.1 Million, Putting the King Back On Top.”

Ms. Ramirez, 16, from Laredo, Texas, writes poignantly about “For 35 Years, Undocumented, and Chasing the American Dream.” She begins her essay:

Two brown skinned, baseball cap clad, Texan fathers of three drove to work on the morning of July 7. One of them never came home, and the other is my father. As I read “For 35 Years, Undocumented, and Chasing the American Dream” I couldn’t help but feel shaken because of the resemblances between the late Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and my dad.

One notable difference is that my dad is a U.S. Citizen and Mr. Salgado was not. However, the writer mentions that during the fatal encounter, he wasn’t the target of the operation, so the question of his legal status was not present. This detail, and the ever increasing death toll at the hands of ICE, amplified my fear that deadly encounters could befall any Mexican-American.

This is our tenth and final week of the Summer Reading Contest; teenagers can post their submissions by Aug. 14 at 9 a.m. Eastern.

We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to LNfeedback@nytimes.com. More next week.

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