Formative & Newsela Integration
Teachers holding both a Formative account and a Newsela account have the option to enhance their students' interaction with Newsela articles by harnessing the power of Formative!
How Does It Work?
Log in to your Newsela account and choose the article you want to assign to your students
In the Assignment Builder on the right side of the screen, locate the Formative section and click the carat to expand it. Proceed to select 'Customize this article's activities' (If graphic organizers are listed under the Formative section, you can also click to access and save a copy of it to your Formative account)
NOTE: Only individual texts support this function currently. This means that you won’t see the Formative button on videos or text sets.Also, at this time only the English version of articles can be pulled into Formative.
At this point you will be redirected to the Formative platform. If prompted, login to your Formative account. The article you've chosen from Newsela will be imported into a new formative, along with the quiz assignment and the answer keys
**Note: your Newsela and Formative accounts must be associated with the same email address
Click the blue plus button to the right of the article to start adding customized questions or content items to enhance the article further. If you've opted in to testing our AI features, you can also generate questions using the AI button
Adjust the reading level on the Newsela text. Please note, this level will be locked for all students in their assignments
Continue to edit your formative to your preference, and once done proceed to assign or present the formative to your students
Q&A
🙋🏽 Which users can access this?
All teachers/ plan types will have access to the integration. Teachers do not need a paid Newsela or paid Formative account to benefit. This means that every Newsela text (regardless of license type) will have the ability to add, at a minimum, bronze-level (basic) activities from Formative.
🙋🏽♀️ Can I create a formative from any piece of Newsela content?
Only individual texts at this time. This means that you won’t see the Formative button on videos or text sets at this time.
Also, at this time the Formative integration supports only English texts. An attempt to pull over an article in a different language will result in the article being pulled into Formative in English.
🙋🏿♂️ When teachers create a formative using Newsela texts, can students access the text at multiple reading levels or at their own level like they do on Newsela.com?
No. Teachers will be able to choose a student reading level before creating and assigning a formative with a Newsela text. Once they’ve selected a level, it will be locked for all students they assign it to. To assign articles at different levels for different students, we recommend creating separate formatives, or assigning via Newsela.
🙋🏼 Where do my assignments live — in Newsela or in Formative?
When you assign an activity on Formative, those results will be visible from within Formative at this time. When teachers assign an article on Newsela, those results will only be visible within Newsela at this time.
🙋🏻♀️ Is it possible to make Newsela activities (quiz, write prompt, Power Words) carry over into a formative?
At this time only quizzes are automatically carried over into Formative. Teachers can copy write prompts manually by adding a Free Response question type into the formative. Power Words are not currently supported with this integration.
🙋🏽 Can teachers or students annotate or use Newsela’s read aloud-feature from within Formative?
These features are not available at this time on Formative. If annotations or reading aloud is imperative to the learning activity, we recommend assigning on Newsela.
🙋🏿♂️ How do students access a formative their teacher created?
Teachers who add students to a class within Formative can assign through Formative’s assign feature. Students will then access the formative by logging in to their Formative accounts. Alternatively, teachers can share a Guest link with students for a temporary, single-use access point.
🙋🏼 Can I share and collaborate with my fellow teachers on formatives that include Newsela content?
If you are a member of a district/school Gold plan in Formative you can add collaborators that are members of the same Gold plan as you, to the formatives that include Newsela content. Please note: currently, these formatives can not be duplicated, nor a copy can be sent over. The only forms of collaboration available are adding collaborators, or tagging as a Common Assessment.
🙋🏽♀️ Can I tag a formative with Newsela content as a common assessment?
Yes. formatives with Newsela content can be tagged as common assessment. Note: at this time, formatives with Newsela content that were tagged as common assessments can not be published to the library.
🙋🏿♂️ Can I duplicate or send a copy of formatives that include Newsela content to other teachers?
At this time this is not possible
🙋🏿♂️ Can I publish formatives that include Newsela content to the library?
Gold plan members can publish formatives that include Newsela content to their organization's private library.
Formatives created with Newsela content can not be published to the public library at this time.
🙋🏻♀️ On Formative, can teachers use the AI question generator on formatives that include Newsela content?
AI question generation is available to users, however, it does not automatically pull in the article content. The user is required to fill the prompt with the instructions they would like to generate questions with. It does not use the Newsela article if left blank and will generate random questions. We recommend pasting in the article content if you want to generate questions.