Assignment Basics

Teachers can assign individual articles or groups of articles (Text Sets). When teachers assign articles, students see the assignments on their Newsela homepage. Even if the teacher does not customize the assignment, when students go to an assigned article at newsela.com or on the Newsela mobile app they can complete the following actions:

• Read the article at all reading levels
• Take the quiz at all reading levels
• Highlight and annotate at all reading levels
• Submit a writing response to the Newsela writing prompt
• Complete Power Words activities (when the school has Newsela ELA and the article has Power Words)

Teachers can customize Newsela assignments with Class Instructions, Annotations, and Writing Prompts. In the rest of this section, you can find instructions for using these features.

Assign an Article

1. Find an article you want to assign and click “Assign”.
2. This will load the Create your assignment popup window.
   In the popup window, you’ll see the options for setting the lexile level, assignment settings, and additional settings.
3. Click “Create assignment” to finalize the assignment or Save Draft to save it for future use.

Assign Multiple Articles

From a Text Set

1. Find a Text Set you want to assign and click Assign. A drop down with pop up, click Create Assignment.
   
2. This will take you to the assignment page, where you have the option to edit the title, student instructions, locked level and select the Assignees for the assignment (individual students or classes) for the assignment.
3. Click “Assign” to finalize the assignment or Save Draft to save it for future use
   

From an Article page or Article Card

1. Find an article that you'd like to assign.
2. Click the blue “Assign” button or in the dropdown click Create Assignment.
   
3. This will take you to the article page, where you have the option to edit the title, student instructions, and activities.
4. To access the lexile levels and select the “Assignees” for the assignment (individual students or classes) click the blue Assign button at the top for the popup window to come up.
5. Click “Create assignment” to finalize the assignment or Save Draft to save it for future use.
6. Find an additional article you'd like to add to the assignment.
7. Click the caret, dropdown arrow next to the “Assign” icon, and select Add to an Assignment.
   
8. Pick the assignment(s) you'd like to add by checking the checkboxes that show in the pop-up window.
9. Click Add to assignment.
10. You can view the updated assignment in View Assignments.

Save an Assignment as a Draft

1. Find an article you want to assign.
2. Click the “Assign” button
3. Click “Save Draft”.
   
4. You can see your drafts in the Assignments page. They will have a blue Draft tag at the top of the assignment bar.
   
5. Drafts are also located in your Assignments page. Select the Draft button at the top to see all your drafts.
6. To assign a draft, select it from the Assignments view.
7. Select “Assign” when directed to the article assignment page.

Update or Delete Assignments

On the assignment page, teachers can update or delete assignments.

Update Assignments

To update the class instructions, lexile levels, or article(s) in an assignment, follow these steps:

1. At the top of the page, click Assignments.
2. Click on the assignment you want to edit. This will take you to the assignment page.
3. On the assignment page, click Edit.
4. After making your updates, click Save changes.
5. To make edits to the lexile level or assignees, click the drop down next to save changes. Select Assignment settings. Once you update everything there, click save changes.
   Note: To update writing prompts or annotations, go to the article page. Scroll down the Teach this article panel to the right of the page. Look under Activities to make edits to annotations, polls, and write prompts. Click Save after you have finished updating or editing the activities.

Delete Assignments

To delete an assignment, follow these steps:

1. At the top of the page, click Assignments.
2. On each assignment bar, you can click on the little trash can icon above the article title to delete it.
3. You can also click on the assignment title. This will take you to the assignment page.
4. On the assignment page, click the Delete button on the top-right.
5. Finally, from the actual article itself, you can click on the drop down next to Save changes, and select delete assignment.

To share an assignment, click the share icon at the top right of an assignment

Share with your LMS or Google

• Assigning with Google
• Assigning with Canvas
• For Schoology and other LMSs, you'll need to create an assignment in Newsela, then share the assignment link in your LMS. Newsela will not automatically share an assignment.

Share with your colleagues

Newsela allows sharing an assignment with other educators. To share assignments with your colleagues, follow these steps:

1. Open the assignment page.
2. Click the Share icon at the top right of the assignment.
3. Click the "Off" icon to allow sharing with other teachers.
   
4. Copy the link and send it to your colleagues via email, social media, or direct message.

Share with families and caregivers

1. Open the assignment you'd like to share.
2. Click the Share icon at the top of the assignment page.
   1. Click "✉Email" to share with caregivers via email
      
   2. Click "🧠Remind" to share via the Remind app
      

   Scheduling Assignments for a Later Date

   Teachers can create assignments and select a date for when they become available to their students. All features of assigning articles, like using small groups are still available when doing so.

   To assign an article to go live at a later date:

   1. Find an article you want to assign and click Assign.
   2. This will take you to the assignment page, where you select the class (or classes) for the assignment. You’ll also see optional steps: Adding instructions, adjusting the reading level your students will see, and scheduling your assignment for a later date.
   3. Click on the calendar icon to choose a date and time for the assignment to go live and become available for your students.
   4. Finish completing your assignment by clicking submit.

   Small Group Assignment

   For more information on assigning to individual students or groups of students, see this article