Current Events In Your Classroom
Teaching Ideas, Activities, and Strategies for High School and Middle School Students
Teaching current events can be challenging: the news cycle moves quickly, the issues can spark strong feelings, and classroom time is tight. Yet engaging with current events is an essential part of educating young people to be informed and humane participants in a democracy.
Use our resources to foster thoughtful classroom conversations and build your students’ capacities for critical thinking, emotional engagement, ethical reflection, and civic agency.
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In this Teaching Idea, students learn about the history of democratic and anti-democratic efforts in the United States and examine sources that illuminate this tension from Reconstruction through today
This Teaching Idea guides students to use an iceberg diagram to synthesize the events of January 6, 2021, and outline the complex array of causes at work.
This Teaching Idea is designed to help guide an initial classroom reflection on the insurrection at the US Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021.
In The News Now
Explainer
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Explainer: Free and Fair Elections
This Explainer describes the standards that governments need to meet before, during, and after an election to ensure that the election is "free and fair."
Explainer
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Explainer: Political Polarization in the United States
This Explainer defines the term political polarization and provides information on how it impacts US politics and society.
Teaching Idea
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Assessing the Strength of Democracy
This Teaching Idea provides students with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of democracy and a framework for making meaning of news stories about the tensions and conflicts in democracies today.
Featured Collection
Race in US History
Policing and the Legacy of Racial Injustice
This series of Teaching Ideas is designed to help students think critically about the long and troubling history between law enforcement and Black Americans, while not stereotyping or criminalizing all police officers.
About Our Current Events Content
What is a Teaching Idea?
Our Teaching Ideas help you address specific events and issues in the news. With a variety of accessible resources and engaging teaching strategies, they can be used for all or part of a class period.
What is an Explainer?
Our printable “Explainers” introduce key terms and ideas that are essential to understanding today’s news. View our latest explainers.
Going Deeper
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Everything you need to get started teaching your students about racism, antisemitism and prejudice.