The New York Times for English lessons

The Learning Network of the New York Times provides a great number of lesson plans and activities like articles, writing prompts, quizzes and contests for students. In this article, we will have a look at their weekly publication “What’s Going On in This Picture?”, where they invite teachers and students to use an image, stripped of its caption or context, to practice visual thinking and close reading skills by holding a discussion or writing activity. 

What is visual thinking? 

Visual thinking is the phenomenon of thinking through visual processing. It’s a way to organize your thoughts and improve your ability to think and communicate. «Real picture thinkers», those who use visual thinking almost to the exclusion of other kinds of thinking, make up a smaller percentage of the population. According to Kreger Silverman, of the 30% of the general population who use visual/spatial thinking, only a small percentage would use this style over and above all other forms of thinking, and can be said to be true «picture thinkers».

How does “What’s Going On in This Picture?” discussion happen? 

They ask students to look closely at the image and think about these three questions:

• What is going on in this picture?
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What more can you find?

Next, learners join the conversation by posting comments in the box. Each Monday, the collaborator facilitates a discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. by paraphrasing comments and linking to responses to help students’ understanding go deeper. On Thursday afternoons, they reveal at the bottom of the post more information about the photo. 

How to use in lessons? 

1. In order to increase students’ autonomy, you can send the link of the website to your students and ask them to work on their own.  
2. You can hold similar weekly discussions using Padlet. 

Step 1 

Add pictures into in Padlet. For example, these ones:

Step 2

Send students the link to the discussion or a QR code. Set time limits and deadlines. 

Step 3

Comment students’ answers, facilitate the discussion. 

Step 4

When time is over, publish the correct answers and ask students to vote and choose the best answer. 

Let’s try all together ?

1. Follow the link.
2. Write your comments below the pictures.
3. In two weeks we will publish the original captions. 

Hope you’ll enjoy the discussion. If you’d like to know more about visual literacy, read this article. 

What do you think of this activity? Are you going to use it with your students? 

Мария Цедрик