Choose the character you will play. *Indicates large speaking role
THINK AND WRITE
Imagine you’re a reporter covering the newsies’ strike. Write an article about what happened and how it led to change. Include quotes from characters in the play.
Meet the working kids who fought back against their bosses—and won!
Learning Objective: As students read this historical fiction play about kids who sold newspapers at the turn of the 20th century, they will identify the theme of young people working together to make things better.
Characters
Choose the character you will play. *Indicates large speaking role
Narrators 1, 2, and 3 (N1, N2, N3)
Crowd, the whole class
Ani, a 12-year-old girl who just moved to New York City
Rose, Sully, Boots, Newsies—kids who sell newspapers
Manager, a man in charge of the newspaper office
Man 1, 2
William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper owner
Prologue
N1: In 1898, there were no TVs.
N2: There were no computers or cell phones, either.
N3: Newspapers were the only way to find out what was going on in the world.
N1: Every day, the papers were sold on the street by kids.
N2: These kids were called “newsies.”
N3: Newsies worked from early in the morning to late at night.
N1: They were poor and often homeless.
N2: They worked to feed themselves and their families.
N3: When newspaper owners stopped treating them fairly—
Crowd: —the newsies stood up for their rights.
Scene 1
A newspaper office,
New York City,
April 1898
Ani: Is this where you sign up?
N1: The newsies look her over.
Rose: Why ain’t you at school?
Ani: I have to help my family.
Sully: Don’t we all.
Ani: How do I sell these?
Boots: You buy two newspapers for a penny.
Rose: Then you sell each paper for a penny.
Sully: That’s how you make money.
N2: Boots walks up to the manager.
Boots: I’ll take 100 papers.
N3: Boots hands over 50 cents.
Manager: Sorry, kid. Price for 100 papers is now 60 cents.
Boots: That means I won’t earn as much money selling papers!
Manager: But these papers will sell fast. Look at the headline: America Declares War!
Boots: Then give me 200!
N1: Ani and Rose buy some too.
Scene 2
Later that day
Boots: These will be easy to sell.
Rose: That’s right. The news is good.
Ani: How is war good news?
Rose: Boring news doesn’t sell papers.
Boots (shouting): Hot off the press! America at war!
N2: In just a few minutes, Boots sells a dozen papers.
Rose: Now you try, Ani.
Ani: Read all about it! War with Spain!
Man 1: I’ll take one.
Scene 3
July 1899
N3: The war has ended.
N1: The newsies stand on a street corner. People walk past.
Ani: No one’s buying papers.
Rose: There’s no more war.
Boots: I give up for today.
Ani: I still have papers left. If I stop now, I’ll lose money!
Rose: Sorry, Ani.
N2: Ani stands on the street. No one buys her papers.
Scene 4
The next morning
N3: Ani, Rose, and Boots enter a room packed with newsies.
N1: Sully speaks to the crowd.
Sully: The newspaper owners said they would drop the price once the war was over.
Crowd: Yeah!
Sully: Did they?
Crowd: No!
Sully: The time has come to take a stand. I say we strike!
Ani: We’re going to stop selling papers?
Rose: That’s right. We’ll force the newspaper owners to lower our price back to 50 cents.
Ani: But I won’t earn anything!
Rose: Sometimes you have to give a little now to get more later.
Sully: Stick together. Nobody sells papers. If you see anyone selling papers, tear them up!
Scene 5
Central Park,
August 1899
N2: Ani and Rose pass out flyers.
Man 1 (reading): “Don’t buy the newspapers.” What’s this?
Rose: We’re on strike.
N3: The man crumples it up.
N1: A factory worker passes by. He gives them each a penny.
Man 2: Stay strong, kids.
N2: Boots runs up, excited.
Boots: All the newsies have started a protest. Come on!
Scene 6
The Brooklyn Bridge
N3: Ani, Rose, and Boots join 1,000 children on the bridge.
N1: Traffic is stopped.
Crowd: Newsies on strike!
Sully: We demand a fair deal!
N2: A wagon carrying papers tries to get through the crowd.
Boots: Get those papers!
N3: The protesters tip the wagon over. They throw papers over the side of the bridge.
N1: William Randolph Hearst’s car pulls up.
Rose (whispering to Ani): He’s the owner of the newspaper.
Boots: And one of the most powerful men in New York.
N2: The crowd gets quiet.
Hearst: Listen up! The papers will cost the same. But if you go back to work, I’ll buy back every paper you don’t sell.
Ani: Is that a good deal?
Boots: Sure. When you can’t sell your papers, you’ll get your money back.
Ani: I like it!
Rose: Me too!
Sully: We’ll take it!
Epilogue
Ani: Selling papers saved my family from being homeless.
Rose: I went back to school.
Boots: You were lucky. I had to keep working.
Sully: Life was still hard.
Ani: But the strike gave us power. It showed us that we had rights—
Boots: —even though we were just kids.
N3: Back then, many kids in the U.S. worked in unsafe and unfair jobs.
N1: Almost 40 years later, a law was passed to help them.
N2: Today, kids can’t work more than 18 hours during a school week.
N3: And all children have the right to an education.
Rose: Those laws didn’t pass in our lifetimes.
Ani: But our bravery helped inspire change for the future.
The play’s opening image is a photo by Lewis Hine, a reformer who took thousands of pictures of child laborers working in America. Have your students take a closer look at his powerful work in the Library of Congress collection.
Have your students read another play about young workers who decided to strike, The Dangerous Life of Harriet Hanson from the October/November 2017 issue. Ask them to write a paragraph comparing and contrasting the experiences of Ani (from Newsies) and Harriet (from The Dangerous Life of Harriet Hanson).
In Scene 5, Ani and Rose pass out flyers about the newsies’ strike. Have your students create a flyer that tells people about the strike. Encourage them to include details from the play, like who is striking and why.
More About the Article
Content-Area Connections
Social Studies: American history
Social-Emotional Learning: relationship skills (communication, teamwork); responsible decision-making (identifying problems, analyzing situations, solving problems, reflecting)
Key Skills
theme, text features, vocabulary, fluency, summarizing, plot, interpreting text, key idea, setting, cause and effect, inference, character’s motivation, main idea, narrative and explanatory writing
1. PREPARING TO READ
Set a Purpose for Reading/Explore Text Features/Watch a Video (10 minutes)
Look at pages 22-23 with the class. Point out the labels “Play” and “Read-aloud play.” Then read the title and subtitle with students. Ask them to describe the illustration.
Explain that the photos and captions on pages 22-27 provide information about life in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s and will help them better understand the events of the play.
Show or assign the video “In the Time of the Newsies: 1890-1915.”
Introduce Vocabulary (15 minutes)
While the play does not include definitions of vocabulary words with the text, a Vocabulary Skill Builder online previews eight challenging terms (available in your Resources tab). You may also play our Vocabulary Slideshow where images help students with comprehension.
2. FOCUS ON FLUENCY
Bridging Decoding and Comprehension
Storyworks 3 plays provide a perfect opportunity for students to build fluency.
Remind students that the stage directions tell a reader or actor how to say a line or perform an action in the play. Direct students to page 26. Point to the word reading in column 1. Read the dialogue aloud with appropriate expression or actions. Ask students to repeat after you.
3. CLOSE READING
Before reading: Point out the Characters box on page 23. Remind students that this is a list of all the characters in the play. How many narrators are there?
First Read: Assign parts and read the play as a class. (If you’re meeting in a virtual classroom, have students write the name of the character they’re portraying on a piece of paper to tape or pin to their shirts—or help them change their display name to their character name. This will make it easier for everyone to follow along.)
Second Read: Project, distribute, or assign the Close-Reading Questions (available in your Resources tab). Discuss them as a class, rereading lines or scenes as necessary.
Pair each student with a partner to discuss the Critical-Thinking Questions. Then ask pairs to share their answers with the class.
Close-Reading Questions (30 minutes)
Read the Prologue. What do you learn about the newsies in this part of the play? (summarizing/plot) The newsies were kids who sold newspapers on the street. They worked long days to help feed themselves and their families. They were poor and often homeless. They stood up for their rights when the newspaper owners treated them unfairly.
Read Scene 1. When Ani says that she needs to help her family, Sully responds, “Don’t we all.” What does he mean? (interpreting text) Sully means that the other newsies, including himself, have the same problem. They are poor and need to help their families by bringing in money for food.
Read Scene 3. When do the events in this scene take place? How does this affect the newsies’ business? (setting/cause and effect) The events take place in July 1899. Because the war with Spain has ended, fewer people are interested in buying newspapers.
Read Scene 4. Why do the kids decide to stand up for themselves by striking? (theme/plot) They decide to strike because the newspaper owners did not keep their promise to drop the price of the papers when the war ended.
Read Scene 5. Why do you think a man crumples up one of the flyers that Ani and Rose are passing out in the street? (inference/character’s motivation) The flyer says, “Don’t buy the newspapers.” The man probably crumples it up because he doesn’t support the newsies’ strike.
Read Scene 6. Why do the newsies decide to end their strike? (plot) William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the newspaper, offers to buy back every paper the newsies don’t sell if they agree to return to work. The newsies agree that his offer is a good deal, and they end their strike against the newspaper owners.
Read the Epilogue. Why does Ani say that “our bravery helped inspire change for the future”? (main idea) The newsies’ courage inspired important laws that were passed almost 40 years after their strike. These laws helped kids in the U.S. by limiting the number of hours they could work during a school week. Because of these new laws, all children now have the right to an education.
Critical-Thinking Question (10 minutes)
4. SEL FOCUS
Young Changemakers
The newsies’ strike in this play shows that kids can be powerful even if they are young.
Ask: Can you think of other examples of ways kids have taken action to make changes? Have you ever done something to try to make a change or improve the world around you? Perhaps you’re a committed recycler who cares about the planet. Or a good friend who tries to help when someone is having a hard time. Answers will vary. Students might have heard of changemakers like the climate activist Greta Thunberg or Marley Dias, who started #1000BlackGirlBooks. Closer to home, they might know of kids who have made changes in their school or community. Finally, kids might talk about ways they have helped others during the pandemic or at other times. Remind your students that even small actions can be powerful.
5. SKILL BUILDING AND WRITING
Featured Skill: Theme
Distribute the Theme Skill Builder (available in your Resources tab) and have students complete it in class or for homework.
GREAT IDEAS FOR REMOTE LEARNING
Our new Learning Journey Slideshow is designed to make your life easier. Have students move through at their own pace or assign smaller chunks for different days. You can also customize the slideshow to your liking.
Gather a small group in your remote classroom for a virtual play reading. Share the play on your screen and assign parts. (Students might read more than one part, depending on the size of the group.) Then read the play aloud together. Encourage students to be expressive as they read! Repeat with other groups until all students have had a chance to participate.
To help students visualize the different historical settings that this play takes place in and to draw them into the world of the play, show them archival images of outside a New York City newspaper office (Scene 1), Central Park (Scene 5), and the Brooklyn Bridge (Scene 6).
This play has several words that can be used both as nouns and verbs. Point out these words: press, strike, protest, and demand. Use the words in sentences in both ways. Then go back to the play and ask students to note whether the words are used as nouns or verbs.
Have students read another play about young workers who decided to strike, The Dangerous Life of Harriet Hanson from the October/November 2017 issue of the magazine. Ask them to write a short essay comparing and contrasting the experiences of Ani (from Newsies) and Harriet (from The Dangerous Life of Harriet Hanson).
In Scene 5, Ani and Rose pass out flyers about the newsies’ strike. Create a flyer that tells about the strike. Include details from the play, like who is striking and why.