Assignments and Reports: Reviewing and Grading Student Work

Teachers can access and review student work both via the Reports tab or via the Assignments tab for any assigned article . Read below for an overview of reviewing work in each location. In the rest of this section, you can find information about reviewing all types of work that students can complete on Newsela. 

The Assignments Tab

From the Assignments Tab teachers can review:

  • Quiz responses

  • Write prompt responses

  • Annotations

  • Read time

  • Checks for understanding

To access:

  1. Click Assignments at the top of any Newsela page.

  2. You will see a list of your assignments and drafts, along with indication of how many students have viewed each assignment.

  3. Not seeing the assignment you are looking for? Adjust the filters panel on the left side of your screen to the desired date range and/or filter by class

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  4. Click an assignment's title to go to the Assignments Review Page.

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  5. From here, you can review a summary of class activity for the assignment, high-level information on individual student performance, and which students need their work reviewed.
    The table will display student information related to the specific subject (or subjects) for which you have a subscription. This includes subject-specific quizzes, subject-specific write prompts, overall read time, and any annotations made. It will also display a column for Checks for Understanding (CFU) if the students have taken them.

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  6. Click on any presented score or 'score now' prompt to be redirected to the Activities Review page, where you can toggle between Quiz, Write Prompts, and Annotations submissions for a more in-depth view of your students' work, and manually score the Write Prompts. You can narrow down the list of submissions by filtering by class or lexile level.

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The Reports Tab (Binder)

From the Reports tab teachers can review:

  • Classroom Data:

    • Reading Summary

    • Reading Skills

  • Power Words

Classroom Data

When you select the Classroom Data tab you are presented with two tabs:

Reading Summary

The Reading Summary tab includes students' overall reading activity across texts, including:

  • Students' article level average

  • Number of articles viewed

  • Average active time on article

  • Average scores on:

    • Quizzes

    • Write Prompts

  • Average Annotations submitted

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Reading Skills

Each level of every Newsela article has its own 4-question quiz connected to reading skills. When you have a Newsela ELA or Newsela Essentials subscription, you can use the Classroom Data report to understand your students' levels of success on reading informational texts skills.

The Reading Skills sub-tab within the Reading Summary tab includes students' quiz performance in all reading skills listed below.

Anchor Skills

  • What the Text Says

    Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

  • Main Idea, Key Details, and Summarization

    Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

  • Connecting People, Events, and Ideas

    Analyze how and why individuals and events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

  • Word Meaning & Choice

    Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative and figurative meanings and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

  • Text Structure

    Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g. a section, chapter, scene or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.

  • Point of View and Purpose

    Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.

  • Interpret Multimedia

    Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively as well as in words.

  • Arguments & Claims

    Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.

Note: This feature is not available for Newsela Social Studies and/or Newsela Science subscriptions.

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To access Classroom Data

  1. Click on Reports at the top of any Newsela page

  2. Select 'Classroom Data' from the dropdown menu

  3. You will be presented with the Reading Summary tab

  4. Use the filters at the left of the screen to narrow down the data by class and/or by date range

  5. You can also click into the Power Words tab to view Power Words reporting

  6. rom here you can click on the name of any student to display a more in-depth view of the Reading Summary and Power Words reports

Power Words

To access and view student activity on Power Words:

  1. Click on Reports at the top of any Newsela page

  2. Select 'Power Words' from the dropdown menu

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  3. You will be presented with a list of students and their Power Words averages and progress.

  4. Use the filters on the left side of your screen to narrow down your display results by class and/or date range

  5. Click a student's name to view more details about their Power Words activity. 

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To see quiz activity in more detail, take the following steps:

  1. Click any student's quiz score to navigate to all of the quizzes completed by the students in the class

  2. From this screen, teachers can toggle between the questions of the quiz to see how each student answered each of the 4 questions provided

  3. Teachers can also change the level of the quiz provided to see student submissions on other levels provided

  4. Teachers can only review quizzes by level. If students have submitted quizzes on different levels, then teachers will need to toggle between each of the levels that students have submitted a quiz on

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  5. Scroll below the quiz questions for the list of student responses

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Click here for more details on quizzes and reviewing quizzes scores

To see and grade write prompts submissions, click on 'score now' under the Write Prompt column for any student who submitted the work. This will pull up all students who submitted written responses to the write prompt.

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The students written responses will then populate on your screen.

Note: Teachers can only review write responses by level. If students have submitted written responses on different levels, then teachers will need to toggle between each of the levels that students have submitted a response on.

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From here you can select a score for each submission, and/or return the writing response back to the student for revision:

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You'll see student information related to the specific subject (or subjects) for which you have a subscription. This includes subject-specific quizzes, subject-specific write prompts, overall read time, and any annotations made.

Here you can also review data from Checks For Understanding:

  • whether or not students responded to a Checks For Understanding question

  • how many attempts it took to complete each Check For Understanding

  • students' responses (e.g., student selected answers B, D, and A, in order)

Checks For Understanding column is also available on the assignment review page.

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