Every day, our team explores diverse online sources for the best content, picking real-world texts to use in your classroom. We find the freshest, most thought-provoking pieces to engage students across reading levels and interests. Each article includes a challenging quiz that the system will score automatically. Zinc even uses these quizzes to track specific reading skills for all of your students!

We’ve made it easy for teachers and students to find articles covering a wide range of topics and classroom needs. Teachers may assign articles with optional vocabulary and writing prompts, and students may explore articles on their own. To work on comparing texts, we also have many comparison quizzes. Lift Off, Zinc's four-week independent reading journey, allows teachers to automatically give students article assignments, allowing students to choose their own article at an appropriate skill level.

Zinc articles are real-world texts, sorted for you by Zinc Level. Articles assignments always include challenging quizzes, which help develop specific reading skills. At your discretion, articles assignments may also include vocabulary and writing prompt activities.
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For teachers, the article page is found by clicking “Assign Activities” in the top menu and then clicking on “Articles and Texts.”

The main articles page displays all our the articles Zinc has prepared for you. Students and teachers may find articles using a variety of sorting features.

Students will see any assigned articles on their Zinc Dashboard or homepage under "Recent Active Assignments." Articles will also be part of other Zinc activities like Lift Off. Students can also check out articles on their own by clicking "Explore Activities" in the top Zinc menu and then clicking on "Articles and Texts."

When a student selects an article or clicks on an article assigned to them, they'll be taken to the article page in Zinc. This page provides clear, step-by-step instructions that detail everything the student needs to do to complete the assignment.

All article assignments include a quiz. A student with a basic article assignment will see the one below. Along with the article and quiz, they have the option to learn words from the article in a vocabulary game.

While giving the assignment, you may require your student to complete the vocabulary game and a writing prompt. If you assign an article with all the possible activities—a vocabulary game, quiz, and writing prompt—your student will see a page like the one below.

If a vocabulary game is assigned with the article, you need to that first by clicking "Learn Words." If you don't complete required vocabulary, you won't be able to unlock the quiz. Click "Read Article" to get to the article itself, which you should read carefully. The article itself might be on Zinc or on another site.

The quiz will be the same whether or not a student is assigned vocabulary or a writing prompt. Each quiz includes Warm-up, Target, and Challenge questions. Warm-up and Target questions are worth more points than Challenge questions. Students must make predictions to unlock the answers. Encourage your students to check the article if they aren't sure about the answer!

If the article is assigned with vocabulary, students must complete the vocabulary game first by clicking "Learn Words” before the quiz will unlock. Zinc reminds and encourages the student several times to read the article, and it even asks them what they thought of the article to encourage engagement. Zinc hosts many articles, while others can be found on carefully vetted sites.

Each quiz includes Warm-up, Target, and Challenge questions. Warm-up and Target questions are on-level for students, so they count more towards the final score than a Challenge question. Students are required to make a prediction before viewing any answer choices.

Here’s the article score breakdown:

When you assign articles to your students, you have the option to include vocabulary and writing prompts. These activities bring added depth to article assignments, and they reinforce everything the student learns during the process.

Zinc has gone to great lengths to help teachers and students find the articles they want. At the top of the articles page, a variety of dropdown menus make it easy to sort through the article library. You can also look for specific keywords using the search bar.

The Topics menu includes broad matters of interest like Art, Change Your Life, and Making History. Clicking on expandable topics will show sub-topics. For expandable topics, you can either select an individual sub-topic to explore or click "Select All" to browse all sub-topics under that topic.

The Article Sets dropdown opens many helpful categories, including excerpts from commonly-taught books and topics like chemistry and philosophy. These sets are an excellent way to find an article that complements what you’re already covering in class. These sets also cover curriculum support for programs such as SpringBoard and Core Ready (LitLife).

To further narrow down your search, use the dropdown menus to sort by details like Zinc Levels, reading skills, and reading time. Clicking the Article Source menu will let you sort out legacy articles from paywalled sources. As shown below, clicking the Standards dropdown gives you different Common Core State Standards and many specific state curriculum standards.

Each article you see on this page includes a brief overview of the content, its Zinc Level, a reading time estimate. You'll also find details about the article quiz, including a list of skills or standards.

You can click the green "See Article and Activities" button on any article to see more details about the assignment. Here, on the Article Quick Tab, you'll see all the questions for the quiz. This is the page you'll need when you want to assign an article to your students. You'll find options to print a PDF of the student quiz and the teacher quiz (which includes the answers).

By clicking on the Vocabulary Game tab, you can view the 10 words included in the optional vocabulary assignment. These short vocabulary activities help prepare students for reading and understanding the article.

The final Writing Prompt tab shows the optional writing prompt. You can view the prompt question, student guidelines, and the answer key you would use for grading the prompt.

Once you’ve found articles that are a good fit for you and your students, consider clicking the yellow bookmark outline to save them for later in your Zinc bookmarks. This will help you keep track of your favorite articles from one semester or school year to the next.

Specific articles may be assigned to single students, groups of students, or entire classes at a time with ease. You can also assign your students article "packs" through Lift Off, which will allow them to choose their own auto-leveled articles.

From the Zinc articles page, click on any article to bring up further details as described above. Click the green "Assign" button to reach the New Assignment page.

On the New Assignment page, you can choose the class with students who should receive the assignment. Select the correct class from the dropdown menu.

The next step will be choosing your options for the assignment.

If you would like to assign pre-reading vocabulary, click the toggle switch. Please keep in mind, students should complete this vocabulary game before reading the article. You also have the option to include the writing prompt.

If you vocabulary toggle is included, the vocabulary options will appear. These options include the vocabulary timer, Enable Classic Mode (restart if a mistake is made), and Spanish vocabulary support (if included for this set). When vocabulary is included with the assignment, the system will not unlock the article quiz until this vocabulary game is completed.

Once you've selected all of your options, click the green "Choose Students" button.

Here, you will choose which students in the class should receive the assignment. If you want to assign the article to the whole class, click the green "Whole Class" button, which will select every student in the class. If you would like to assign to one or more specific students, click the checkbox to the left of their name. Once you've selected your students, click the green "Assign" button. The assignment will appear on each student's Zinc homepage.

Please note that if the student has already received the assignment or chosen to begin the article themselves, then you will not be able to click the checkbox to the left of their name, and they will not be selected if you click the "Whole Class" button. Please ask them to complete the assignment on their dashboard. If the assignment is not on their dashboard, have them search for it on the article page. You will see their results with the rest of the class on the article's Assignment Progress Report.

Article activities expire two months after being assigned. Once an assignment has expired, the student will no longer be able to complete it using the options you've selected. Once an article has expired, you can reassign it to a student.

If an article assignment includes a writing prompt, students must complete the prompt after completing the quiz. Articles will have a prompt in one of three categories: Creative, Argument/Opinion, or Explanatory/Informational.

From the student view, each writing prompt assignment includes the question they should answer and helpful guidelines for crafting a strong response. Students may save their work at any time by clicking "Save Draft." They are encouraged to go back to the article for quotes and clarifications. When the student is done, they click "Submit Your Response."

Clicking “View Report” for each article assignment on your Dashboard to track student progress. You may also click on “View Classes & Reports,” then “Assigned Activities,” and then the assigned article.

Clicking on the assignment will show you all the students who were included. Once a student has completed their writing prompt, the last entry on that student’s row will show “Needs Review.” You will also receive a notification at the top of the page that you have ungraded writing prompts.

Click the green "Start Reviewing" button or the "Review" button by a student's assignment to open the writing prompt response review. This page includes the original prompt, an overview of the text, and a response key.
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Use the drop downs under "Student Score" to provide a score of 1 to 4 on the student's claims/structure, evidence/elaboration, and grammar/style. View the Scoring Rubric to see specific requirements for each category. The total score is always 1 to 12 points, and you can provide feedback to your students in the text box.

This information will help you quickly review the student’s writing prompt response without the need to read the article yourself. This is especially valuable if you give a variety of different articles to a group of students.

Zinc offers a selection of comparison quizzes for teachers and students. These comparison quizzes offer a special quiz that refers to two articles. These comparison quiz assignments help students strengthen their ability to compare texts.

These comparison quizzes work like our other article quizzes. They require students to make predictions before revealing the multiple choice answers. Please note: comparison quizzes require students to read two texts. When you assign comparison quizzes, you do not have options for vocabulary or writing prompts.

After they were added to Zinc, some articles have been placed behind a paywall. Due to requests, we have continued to make these articles and quizzes available for teachers who use them in class. Please note, all new articles on Zinc will be freely accessible to all users. Lift Off will not include known paywalled articled.

If an article on Zinc is behind any kind of paywall, it will include a note on the article's assignment page. Please let us know if you come upon an article on Zinc that is missing the paywall warning.

If you would like to avoid all paywalled articles when browsing Zinc, please click on the "Hide paywalled articled" switch on the Article page. This will prevent paywalled articles from showing up when you search or sort to create articles assignments.

If ever experience any issues with accessing Zinc articles, please contact Zinc Support by clicking the blue circle and speech bubble in the bottom-right corner of your Zinc screen.

Because we use real-world texts, articles sometimes do not appear when you or a student clicks the “Read the Article” button. Fortunately, we're here to resolve any issues.

If you or your students require a text that is blocked or unavailable, please contact Zinc support using the blue balloon in the bottom right-hand corner of your Zinc homepage. Our team will supply you or your students with a PDF to complete the quiz.

If you and your students find several blocked articles, please forward our Zinc article whitelist to your IT department. Your IT department can use this whitelist to allow all of your students access to every Zinc article.