civics current events assignment

News for Students and Teacher Resources Grades 6-12

civics current events assignment

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Classroom features daily news lessons based on PBS NewsHour , full-length video-based lesson plans and opportunities for teachers and students to be published on Classroom Voices

Featured Resources:

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Civics & Social Studies

Martin Luther King Jr. Day classroom resources

Examine Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy with these lesson plans and videos

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Lesson plan: The March on Washington and its impact

Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech and explore themes such as the social conditions in the U.S. that led to the Civil Rights Movement

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Lesson plan: Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech as a work of literature

Students will study Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and discuss the literary influences on King's speech

Arts & Culture

civics current events assignment

Civics & History

Social Studies

civics current events assignment

Be Informed. Stay Engaged.

We'll send you ready-to-go current events lessons each morning

Journalism in Action

Civic Engagement and Primary Sources Through Key Moments in History

The Journalism in Action website allows students to investigate the role journalism has played in U.S. history and what it means to have a free press.

Using the Library of Congress' databases, students analyze primary sources ranging from Civil War photographs to broadcasts of the Watergate hearings.

civics current events assignment

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The Civic Educator

Carl Azuz introducing the September 21 episode of CNN10's video news podcast.

Teaching Methods and Assessments to Use with CNN10 Current Events

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Teaching current events is an important part of civics education. Students need to know what’s going on around the world to be engaged citizens.

If you want to teach current events in class, CNN10 is a free online resource for doing so. If you’re unfamiliar with CNN10, you can read more about why it’s a great tool to use with your students here .

Five Suggested Methods for Teaching Current Events with CNN10

But if you’ve already checked out CNN10, you know it’s a daily 10 minute video podcast that covers three to four important news stories. At this point, you’re probably wondering how best to incorporate it into your class. On that note, here are five suggestions to get you started.

Once Weekly Current Events and Summaries

Set aside one day a week and devote it to current events. On that day, start by asking students to share any news stories they’ve heard about during the week. Then, watch one to two of the CNN10 videos from the week. I suggest always using Friday’s video, because it includes the cool montage at the end of the episode. For the second one, you might want to skim the topics for the week to see what is most relevant to your students.

Have the students jot down notes while they are watching the video, and after each one take a few minutes to debrief. As a group, identify each story, emphasize the key details, and answer any questions that the students had. If there’s a particularly interesting or relevant story, you can extend this into a brief class discussion, but try to avoid it consuming the entire period.

Once you’ve finished both videos, have the students write one of two things. Either write a paragraph that summarizes the key events of the week, citing at least three news stories as examples. Or write a paragraph that identifies the most important story of the week, summarizes that story, and explains why it is important. They’re slightly different writing skills, so you may choose to assign one or the other to target those skills. You could also leave the choice up to the students.

One final adjustment would be to assign the writing for homework. This would increase the amount of class time available for discussion of the news as a class. You could always play this by ear, assigning the writing for classwork if the discussion peters out and assigning it for homework if there’s enough interest to carry it through the end of the class.

Daily Current Events and Summaries

A second option is to watch each day’s CNN10 video as an introductory activity for the day. It’s short enough that you can settle in, watch the video, and quickly debrief in 15 minutes. Afterwards, you’ll still have time for another main activity in class. This is best suited for block periods, but you can do this with a traditional class as well if you instill the routines in your students and eliminate time wasting.

If you watch these current events on a daily basis, I would suggest that you have the students write a paragraph each day as per the assignment above. However, it’s simplest to have them hold on to those summaries until the end of the week and hand them each Monday. Students who are absent can watch the videos on their own time and make them up. If you miss a day, you can also assign that video for homework. Collecting it weekly also cuts down on the amount of paper you collect and read, as you can quickly check an entire week’s worth of work instead of five pages per student per week.

Flipped Classroom Videos and Weekly Quizzes

A third option is to flip the classroom and assign each day’s video for homework. If you use a learning management system, you can upload the videos there for students to access, or they can go directly to the CNN10 website. Similar to the suggestion above, students can write a daily summary or reflection on what they’ve watched and you can collect that each Monday. The Monday due date gives students the entire weekend to catch up on any videos they missed, and it allows busy students like athletes to make adjustments to accommodate their weeknight schedules.

As an added incentive to make sure that students watch the videos and write thorough summaries, I would give a quick quiz each Monday morning. CNN provides a series of multiple choice questions with each video, so you could borrow some of these and combine them into a quiz. You could also write your own. Either way, let the students use their notebooks on the quiz and ask a few questions about the major details of the news stories. This will ensure that students aren’t just skimming the headline and writing their summary by paraphrasing the summary CNN10 provides.

Monthly or Quarterly Reflections

Once you get students in the habit of regularly consuming the news, you should incorporate regular longterm reflections. On a monthly or quarterly basis, assign students an essay that asks them to reflect on the major themes in the news. For example, some recent recurrent themes are have been the conflict with North Korea, natural disasters, and the debate over the Affordable Care Act. Writing the essay is a good opportunity for students to look back through their writing for the period in question and think about the bigger picture. On a daily basis, it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees and focus too much on the individual events and news of the day.

Have Students Produce Their Own CNN Student News

A fun summative project for a semester or for the year would be to have students produce their own CNN Student News show. After a few months, they’ll understand the format and routines of the show. Depending on the technical capabilities of your students and the available technology in your school, you could set higher or lower standards for production value.

If you set the bar high, you could require students to incorporate some actual news footage into their broadcast, share a viral video clip, and close out with a photo montage from the week. You could also require them to film a “CNN Hero” type segment where they interview and feature a student or staff member from the school community.

You could set the bar a bit lower by simply having them write up a script, putting two news anchors behind a desk, and filming it on a cell phone.

Either way, this steps it up a notch from just watching and summarizing the news to making editorial decisions about what to include and what not to cut. As part of the assignment, you should ask students for a written reflection on their production process as a group.

If your kids are into video production, you should also think about using StudentCam in your class . It’s an awesome project that challenges kids to think deeply about the Constitution… and they can win a cash prize for participating.

Have You Used CNN10 In Your Class?

If you’ve never used CNN10, take one of these ideas and try it out. But if you have, why don’t you share your routine in the comments? The five suggestions above are just the beginning. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways that teachers incorporate this into their routine.

Also, don’t forget that using current events is one of the six research based methods for improving civics education . Read more about the other five.

Finally, CNN10 is also a great way to liven things up a bit. Here’s a list of six ways to teach government in a fun way , if you’re looking for more ideas.

9 comments on “Teaching Methods and Assessments to Use with CNN10 Current Events”

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  • January 25, 2018

I have used CNN 10 in all of those ways mentioned.

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  • January 10, 2019

I teach 6th grade. While watching the show, students take notes. After the show, they sit in their teams and I ask 10 trivia questions. They compete for points and we keep running tallies as the year progresses. After each unit of study, we award a winner and switch around the teams.

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  • Jennifer Samborski
  • May 22, 2019

I teach ancient world history. I have students connect something they have learned in class to stories they see on CNN 10. An example would be to connect a geographic location (the Kushan empire to a story about India) or an important concept (trade and it’s impact on people today as well as people in ancient empires). This helps students to make real world connections that make what we learn in class more relevant for them.

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  • August 28, 2019

Does CNN10 still provide questions? I can’t seem to find them if they do

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  • September 4, 2019

They don’t provide daily questions, but they do still provide weekly questions. They’re posted along with the Friday episode. For example, if you look at the August 30 episode, you’ll see the “Weekly News Quiz” with 10 questions (and a printable PDF).

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  • January 21, 2020

I’ve also used Google My Maps to create and interactive map. We create a class map that’s been shared to everyone, and at the end of every episode we add the stories to the map with short summaries.

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  • Julie Gentzen
  • July 21, 2020

Now that’s an awesome idea!

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  • Patricia Lowe
  • May 19, 2020

I teach a Special Needs class at Lyons Creek Middle School in Coconut Creek, Florida. We watch CNN10 everyday. I ask my students to give me 1 or 2 details about an event that they remember. They are able to come up with some pretty good feedback. With this pandemic going on in our society, I am still showing them the daily digital videos to keep them up to date during virtual teaching. It is sort of different than being in the classroom. I just want Carl Azuz to know that my students look forwards to watching his 10 minute news show. Would it be possible to mention our school, when we finally return to our real classroom in the fall. I would like for this to be a school wide event and our students would be thrilled. A couple years ago, you mentioned my high school in Smith’s Station Alabama, I was thrilled! Thank you, Ms. Lowe, Special Needs teacher

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  • September 19, 2020

There is a fantastic cnn10 daily quiz resource on teacherspayteachers.com I highly recommend!

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Civics for All: Current issues and events

This collection of lesson plans and resources supplement the Civics for All curriculum to aid in teaching current issues and events. These materials include two resource types:

Full K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and/or 9-12 lesson plans that connect fundamental civics concepts to current issues and events. The formatting of the lesson plans is consistent with the Civics for All lesson plans and are distinguishable by their purple color-coding.

A brief summary of the issue or event with suggested resources for lesson planning and teaching civics-related current events.

The collection will grow over time. It is recommended that you download and review Current Events and Civics Education before using the resources in this collection in your classroom.

The titles and details for the first set of resources that will be in the collection are below:

Included Resources

Civics for all: the impeachment process.

These full 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 lessons each provide a unique and grade-appropriate exploration of impeachment in the United States as well as other resources and infographics. The formatting of the lesson plans is consistent with the Civics for All lesson plans and is distinguishable by the purple color-coding.

Current events and civics education

Current events and civics educ....

As part of Civics as Part of Quality Social Studies Instruction (pages 17-26 of the Civics for All curriculum) this resource provides guidance on the connection between instructional practices, current issues and events, and the civics classroom.

Resources to Support Discussions On Racism an...

Resources to support discussio..., resources to support discussions on racism and systemic inequality.

This document is a compilation of resources to support classroom discussions on racism and systemic inequality.

civics current events assignment

Current Events

These news articles are relevant to topics in U.S. History, Government, and Civics classrooms. Each week, the Bill of Rights Institute searches for contemporary news articles that explore relevant themes and connect them to BRI resources. Check out our collection of articles here.

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Resources for teaching civics using New York Times content

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civics current events assignment

Film Club: ‘Things Fall Apart: How the Middle Ground on Immigration Collapsed’

A Times Opinion video explores why Republicans and Democrats have moved so far apart on immigration. Is there any hope for a political compromise?

By The Learning Network

civics current events assignment

What’s Going On in This Graph? | Feb. 28, 2024

In 2023, what happened to migrants who attempted to cross the southern border?

civics current events assignment

Film Club: ‘How to Protect Millions of Workers Without a Union’

In a Times Opinion video, Jeff Seal, a journalist and comedian, makes a colorful case that there’s more than one way for workers to organize. Is he convincing?

civics current events assignment

What Is Your Reaction to the Presidential Race So Far?

Donald J. Trump made history with a second straight victory, while President Biden is cruising to renomination.

By Michael Gonchar

civics current events assignment

Some States Have Removed Trump From the Ballot. Is This a Good Thing for Democracy?

Ballot challenges focus on whether Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election make him ineligible to hold the presidency again.

civics current events assignment

Film Club: ‘A Toast to Raising Alcohol Taxes’

What can be done to reduce the destructive effects of excessive drinking? A Times Opinion video proposes a simple but effective idea.

civics current events assignment

Lesson Plan | ‘An American Puzzle: Fitting Race in a Box’

Census categories for race and ethnicity have changed over the last 230 years. What might that suggest about the United States’ past and future?

civics current events assignment

What Question Would You Ask a Politician?

A 15-year-old has been asking presidential candidates tough questions on the campaign trial. What questions would you pose to someone in a position of power?

By Jeremy Engle

civics current events assignment

How Much Faith Do You Have in the U.S. Political System?

Do you worry that political divisions are too deep, the government is too dysfunctional or civic norms are too challenged? Or are you confident that American democracy is still strong?

civics current events assignment

What Students Are Saying About the End of Race-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Teenagers around the country weigh in on the Supreme Court’s June ruling.

Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Seven Ways to Bring Current Events Into the Classroom

civics current events assignment

  • Share article

The news always seems to be moving a thousand miles an hour, with much of it impacting our students’ lives—either now or in the future.

This two-part series will explore ways we connect those current events to what we’re teaching in the classroom.

Today, Suzie Boss, Kristen Koppers, Sarah Cooper, Mike Kaechele, Jessica Torres, and Renee Hobbs share their ideas. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Suzie and Kristen on my BAM! Radio Show . You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.

You might also find addiitonal useful resources at The Best Resources & Ideas For Teaching About Current Events.

Project-Based Learning

Suzie Boss is a PBL (Project-Based Learning) advocate, author, and member of the PBLWorks National Faculty. Her latest books are Project Based Teaching and Reinventing Project-Based Learning, 3 rd Ed :

One of the best ways to amplify the authenticity of school is to connect the curriculum to current events. I call this “ripped-from-the-headlines” teaching. For many students, the invitation to focus on timely topics—from pop culture to political controversies—is a surefire way to increase engagement.

Current events can inform lesson plans in small ways. For example, English teachers can make free-writes more relevant by using hashtags from social media as writing prompts. Elementary teachers might focus morning meetings on events that are in the news—and, likely, on students’ minds. Science teachers might connect a lesson to a health-related headline.

To maximize the learning potential, however, I encourage teachers to look to the headlines as inspiration for more extended, project-based learning. Well-designed projects invite students to go deeper and make their own connections between academics and the world beyond the classroom. In the process, they will likely need to think critically about everything from the reliability and biases of news sources to the echoes of history in events unfolding today.

Let’s consider a few examples.

Chemistry teacher Ray Ahmed leveraged the Flint, Mich., water crisis to launch his students in Brooklyn, N.Y., on an investigation of how to prevent lead from leaching into drinking water. They had to think as chemists to design experiments about corrosive inhibitors, analyze data, propose solutions, and explain their results in a scientific journal article. Although they live hundreds of miles from Flint, Brooklyn students made personal connections to the larger issue of environmental racism, which has affected the quality of life in their own community. (Ahmed was one of the inspiring teachers I interviewed for a recent book, Project Based Teaching: How to Create Rigorous and Engaging Learning Experiences . This video from PBLWorks documents the Water Quality Project from start to finish.)

Immigration issues not only dominate headlines, they also reflect the life experiences of many of our students and their families. Connecting today’s immigration stories with academic content about human migration is a way to bring human geography to life. For example, Texas teacher Ryan Sprott is co-founder of a collaboration between educators and artists called the Borderland Collective , which invites students to take part in storytelling, photography, and art making.

Election cycles offer social studies teachers real-time connections to their content. Projects might culminate in debates, with students basing arguments on evidence; candidate fairs that students host, with a focus on issues they care about; or public-service campaigns to increase turnout of first-time voters.

If you overhear students buzzing about pop culture, listen closely for connections to learning goals. For Delaware English teacher Dara Laws Savage, it was the #oscarssowhite controversy a couple years back—when few actors of color were nominated for Academy Awards—that generated the idea for an annual awards event honoring African American icons. It’s become an annual event during Black History Month. Students develop criteria for excellence in different categories, make nominations, and persuade voters to share their opinions. Listen to an interview about the project here .

If you’re looking for timely connections for your next PBL unit, ask yourself:

  • Is there a topic or event that could provide an entry event for your next project?
  • Do you see natural connections between the topic and your upcoming content goals?
  • Does the topic involve a problem or challenge that your students could attempt to solve or debate through an extended inquiry project?

As you design your next project, take advantage of resources that will help your students think critically about current events. For example, Project Look Sharp is a K-12 resource for building media literacy. Pro/Con challenges readers to consider both sides of controversial issues.

Don’t be surprised if your students wind up making headlines themselves as a result of their projects.

Connecting George Orwell & Harper Lee to current events

Kristen Koppers is a national-board-certified teacher. She earned her bachelor of arts degree in English from Western Michigan University, a master of arts in English and a master of arts in educational administration from Governors State University. She is a public high school public English teacher. Her book Differentiated Instruction in the Teaching Profession was released in July, 2019:

Connecting current events with lessons in the classroom isn’t as difficult as it seems. Practically every lesson that’s taught from kindergarten through high school, and even postsecondary, can connect to a news article worldwide. It’s difficult to get students to watch the news or even listen to it. Because what they see on social media is the extent of their knowledge. Social-media news, at least from what I can see, is not all accurate. How can we as teachers make sure students are aware of credible information to information that is missing important facts?

The problem isn’t that many don’t take the time to read, listen, or even watch current events. The problem is that it’s not researched. As an ELA secondary education teacher, I not only connect current events to almost every lesson but I make it as authentic as possible. When I teach 1984 , by George Orwell, we focus on the aspect of the First Amendment. Even as an English teacher, I bring in the other subjects, such as history, social sciences, math, and even fine arts to connect with my students. For this particular lesson, I mainly focus on history and political science.

In the novel 1984 , privacy both public and private did not exist. Orwell’s slogan: ‘Ignorance is Strength’ is truer than we know. The less one knows the better. Before beginning the novel, I play a small video clip of Orwell, himself, just before he died warning about the future. Since Orwell wrote the novel in 1948, no one believed what he said was true. Many even thought that he was delusional during his last year. (I mean the title of the novel was just switching the last two digits of the year 48 to 84). However, whether it was coincidence or not, the Apple computer came out in 1984. After showing the short video clip of George Orwell’s warning, I showed the original 1984 commercial of the Macintosh computer. This got the students to talk.

I collected various articles beginning in 1984 through 2018. In their groups, the students read over them one by one where they started to make connections between what was similar about how technology evolved. I then pull out my iPhone to open the app “find my iPhone” to locate my husband. Now, normally, I do not have my phone in class. But for this particular lesson, I wanted to show how easily technology has not only evolved but our privacy has diminished.

I locate my husband and start pinging his phone for location. He knows what I’m going to do in class so he calls me (I have him on speaker) and asks me why I’m tracking him. Now before he calls, I tell the students where he is located. When he calls, I ask him his location. The reason he was on speaker was for the students to hear where he was located. Prior to the call, I told my students that he was located off Route 6 next to the gas station. When asked his location, he confirmed it. The phone conversation ends, and the class conversation begins.

This all connects to current events. This activity takes about two days because I want them to go home and think before the next lesson. Many actually went home to research “invasion of privacy” on their school computers. Because, after all, I can track what they research outside of my classroom. When they find this out, they say I violated their First Amendment rights. So, I have them look up First Amendment rights and I asked them what I exactly infringed upon. What they didn’t realize is that it’s the Fourth Amendment rights they were thinking about not the First. They were speechless.

With this one activity, my students are becoming more aware of current events. However, it wasn’t this one lesson that we connected to current events. Every day was a new lesson; whether we were reading the novel or not, I was able to relate to what was happening in the news.

Even studying short stories and past news about events, such as the lynching of Emmett Till, students were appalled at what happened. We studied a brief overview of the Civil Rights Movement and connected it to To Kill A Mockingbird , by Harper Lee. In 2017, evidence came out that the woman, Carolyn Bryant, Till “whistled” at wasn’t telling the truth. This encouraged them to find other articles about those wrongly accused no matter of race, gender, or religion.

It’s not just lessons that we teach based on the curriculum. If we can connect those lessons to skills students need to succeed, then we are doing our job.

civics current events assignment

Discussing currect events across subject areas

Sarah Cooper teaches 8th grade U.S. history and is dean of studies at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada, Calif. She is the author of two books, Creating Citizens (Routledge, 2018) and Making History Mine (Stenhouse, 2009). Sarah speaks at conferences and writes for MiddleWeb’s Future of History blog, and she lives just outside Los Angeles with her husband and two sons:

We can link current events to what we teach in the classroom in at least two ways—through content and through character.

With content, teachers sometimes wonder how they can justify adding current events to their lessons if they’re not teaching contemporary history or politics.

A surefire way to make such connections is through themes, layering relevant pieces over the planks of an existing curriculum.

For instance, a science teacher can bring in articles all year about scientific ethics, and an English teacher can discuss pieces about group identity or the perils and promises of technology. A teacher of ancient world history can talk about the thrills of modern archaeology. World-language teachers can find pieces about contemporary cultures and politics, and arts teachers can check out the arts section of their local newspaper or alternative weekly.

With character, the relevance of current events expands even more. Many classroom teachers, from math to P.E., build norms with their students as school starts. Later in the year, if you see an article or video that reinforces one of these expectations, you can bring it in to discuss.

In my experience, students especially love stories that focus on positive human interactions, to lighten the daily news litany they scroll through online. One excellent resource for such stories is the Huffington Post’s Good News page . Such stories also generally avoid political partisanship, which even veteran social studies teachers can find hard to navigate.

Finally, don’t feel you have to do a lot! Even five minutes each day, or each week, can open up conversations you never would have had otherwise. And, if you bring in articles frequently enough, your students may start sending you what they find, creating a dialogue that can last far beyond a year in your classroom.

Don’t avoid controversial topics

Mike Kaechele is a history teacher in Grand Rapids, Mich., and National Faculty for PBLWorks. He believes in student-centered learning by giving kids authentic opportunities to do real work with local community partners:

Current events are a great way to engage students in the classroom. Project-Based Learning is an excellent structure to introduce current events. One of the key components of PBL is “authenticity,” and current events make content relevant. I use current events as “entry events” to get kids fired up about the launch of a project. My final products often ask kids to apply lessons from history to propose solutions to current issues that they present to community partners.

In social studies, current events can be used as an entry point to have students trace the causes of current problems to their source. The past can give both warnings and solutions to current problems that need to be addressed. I always use current contexts to launch history projects to give students motivation to learn about the past. For example the Driving Question, “Why do terrorists hate the United States?” requires students to do an in-depth study of American foreign policy of the last century to understand why certain countries do not see the United States as the “hero” on the world stage.

Current events engage students by shedding light on the tensions between American ideals and realities. They force students to be critical thinkers, considering multiple perspectives throughout history. Oftentimes, content is centered around sterile textbooks that do not address current realities. Embracing the controversy of current events engages students in critical thinking. For example, current arguments about immigration could lead to an exploration of our complex history of both welcoming some groups of immigrants while simultaneously discriminating against others with quotas and unjust laws. Students should be shown that current events do not happen in a vacuum but often are seated in a long history of controversy in our country.

Ideally. current events lead students to be proactive in coming up with solutions to the complex, connected society that they are inheriting. If we want students to awaken to the importance of our core content, then current events can be the hook for engagement by addressing real-world issues that their generation will be forced to solve. So instead of avoiding controversy, embrace it and teach students to consider all sides of current issues before taking up a strong position.

Articles & Podcasts

Jessica Torres serves as an educational specialist for ESC Region 12 in the heart of Texas. Formerly an assistant principal and Montessori teacher, Mrs. Torres is passionate about developing educators to provide innovative approaches and experiences for all learners as they pursue their unique interests and learning passions:

Our world has become a very small global community. Social media has allowed our news to become instantaneous in our society, allowing us to “know” what is happening before all of the facts have been clarified and the details are drawn out. For anyone living in today’s media-driven world, it is imperative that they be able to decipher between the facts and the rest, including propaganda, bias, disinformation, and click-bait. With this in mind, discussing current events in the classroom has become more than a fleeting idea—it has become an integral part of ensuring that our students are informed and prepared to face tough topics head-on with a background of knowledge and facts to support their opinions. Here are a few ideas and resources that I use to easily weave current events into the classroom each day and help students decipher between the muck and the news.

  • Newsela - The article archive provides access to the world’s news in a student-friendly format that allows the teacher to differentiate for Lexile level or reading ability. Teachers can create assignments from the articles on Google Classroom or share them with the whole group. Each article comes with its own comprehension questions and writing prompt that can be used to engage students in conversation. Allowing students time to discuss their thoughts and emotions in a safe space, such as the classroom, encourages them to listen and think about other perspectives.
  • Fact vs. Fiction book by Jennifer LaGarde and Darren Hudgins - Everyone needs help determining what’s real and what’s been spun lately. This book, written by two engaging educators, helps us develop strategies to use with ourselves and our students to safeguard our hearts and minds from inaccurate news and sources. Developing strong critical-thinking skills are the focus of this book, and a variety of resources are provided to help teachers as they share news items in their classrooms.
  • Podcasts - Either listening to podcasts or having students create their own podcasts based on what they have learned from news stories can be extremely powerful and clarifying. Many students thoroughly enjoy listening to someone “talk” about the news rather than read about it. For other students, having the opportunity to express their own thoughts or perspective on an event feels personal and encourages ownership. Additionally, podcasts are known to be brief and completely scalable to fit the needs of the classroom.

“The worst ways to bring current events into the classroom”

Renee Hobbs is professor of communication studies and director of the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island’s Harrington School of Communication and Media. An expert on digital and media literacy, Hobbs is the author of the forthcoming book Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age . Hobbs provides media-literacy curriculum resources for K-12 and college faculty and has offered professional-development programs on four continents:

Let’s start with identifying two of the worst ways to bring current events into the classroom: require students to maintain a current events journal or stage a debate about ongoing news and current events topic. The current events journal is a too-common assignment in middle school and high school where students must write short summaries of news, following a particular format. It’s an assignment that makes paying attention to news and current events a chore, a form of homework, and something to be dreaded. Assignments like this are not likely to inspire students to want to be informed on current events or encourage their intellectual curiosity about the news.

Classroom debate activities are well-meaning efforts intended to promote understanding of controversial public issues. But when students are positioned to take opposing sides and encouraged to gather evidence, argue their side and “win,” this legalistic practice actually leads adolescents in the wrong direction. As an instructional practice, debate can work against the development of genuine understanding and knowledge. Because debates promote competition, it does not model the deliberative and reflective practice of activating intellectual curiosity and modeling humility. When it comes to learning, the goal is not winning—it’s understanding.

Learning Civil Discourse

Instead of debate, students need to practice the art of perspective-taking on news and current events. In a five-minute daily discussion, start with a question to the whole group: “What are all the things you have heard about this topic, regardless of whether you believe them or not?” This invites general sharing and gathering of ideas, and it frees students up to offer ideas without being associated with or having to defend them.

In this kind of activity, students can share information without isolating themselves from their group. Plus, this method does not alienate the students who aren’t familiar with the news event or controversy under discussion. There’s no penalty for not knowing. Students can learn about current events from their peers.

Some teachers maintain a classroom rule for current events discussions: “You only have a right to an opinion if you have evidence or experience to back it up. If you don’t, then ask questions and listen and learn.” When students hear this, they feel a sense of relief. Students can show that they are participating by asking questions and taking notes. High school social studies teacher Emily Glankler explains it this way: “I’m trying to address a social problem we have in society today. Part of the problem is that people think they are entitled to an opinion on everything.” The everyday ritual of talking about current events for five minutes a day all year long models the practice of becoming a lifelong learner and an engaged citizen.

(This is the first post in a two-part series. You can see Part 2 here. )

The question of the week is:

What are the best ways to connect current events to what we’re teaching in the classroom?

Thanks to Suzie, Kristen, Sarah, Mike, Jessica, and Renee for their contributions.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader.

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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civics current events assignment

Current Event Assignment

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Get your students involved in current events with this current event assignment! With this assignment, they research one current event from two news sources: one from the right and left source using a website called All Sides. They compare how the same topic can be biased and persuasive. There is a rubric to make grading easier. Each student is assigned one week a marking period. We share and discuss current events every Friday. My student actually look forward to current events every week!

What’s Included: 1. Assignment to compare the two sources and a connection to the class 2. Rubric for easy grading

Don’t Believe Me Read a Review: 

“Awesome way to look at current events – forces students to think about both sides of an issue. Ready to use without editing. A rubric is included. Would recommend it!” Lynn

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  • Grades 6-12
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Teach Current Events With These Free Worksheets From The Week Junior

Article summary worksheets and news accuracy tips for grades 3-8! 🗞️

Current events worksheets - The Week Junior

The Week Junior magazine is a kid-friendly, unbiased current events news source. It’s a safe and trusted partner to help you explain to kids what’s happening in the world while providing fun reading content including puzzles, recipes, crafts, and more. 

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The benefits of using current events in the classroom are practically endless. News stories help students better understand their communities, new perspectives, and real-world events. Introducing current events in the classroom can promote critical thinking, empathy, reading skills, global awareness, and so much more. Whether you’re assigning weekly current events summaries or conducting a single lesson, our free current events worksheets for grades 3-8 are the perfect companion.

Inside, you’ll find two options for current event summaries. In addition, our savvy news reader tips and activity will guide students through determining if an article is trustworthy. In a world of so many media outlets, news literacy is a crucial skill!

Get my current events worksheets!

Current Events Summary Worksheets

Current events worksheet graphic organizer

WeAreTeachers

  • When giving current events assignments, give students the option to use one of two article summary worksheets to get started.
  • Choose from a graphic organizer–style worksheet or a traditional fill-in worksheet to evaluate an article.

News Accuracy Worksheets

News savvy current events worksheet

  • Begin a lesson on news literacy. Use the list tips to educate students on determining a news article’s accuracy and credibility.
  • Then, have students complete the corresponding worksheet to practice what they learned and evaluate a news article on their own.

The Week Junior , an Unbiased Classroom Current Events Resource

The Week Junior magazine is an awesome way to expose 3rd through 8th grade readers to current events through a kid-friendly, unbiased magazine. There’s something for every student, with sections on sports, culture, movies, crafts, recipes, and so much more! Get a free issue of The Week Junior , and watch kids dive into this interactive reading resource.

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IMAGES

  1. Legislative Branch Civics 101 Podcast and Current Events Activity Kit

    civics current events assignment

  2. Current Event- Civics

    civics current events assignment

  3. Current Events Assignment (High School) by Kate Broughton

    civics current events assignment

  4. YMB #78 Civics and Current Events: A Conversation with Jill Hummer

    civics current events assignment

  5. "Breaking News!" Current events, civics, social studies, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

    civics current events assignment

  6. YMB #78 Civics and Current Events: A Conversation with Jill Hummer

    civics current events assignment

VIDEO

  1. Federalism in the United States

  2. How to Complete a Current Event Assignment

  3. 2022 Nation's Report Card U.S. History and Civics Release Event

  4. Updated 100 Civics Questions (By Groups) for US Citizenship Interview 2023

  5. Civics: Current Events Project

  6. 2023 100 Civics Questions and Answers in Random Order 2008 Version, U.S. Citizenship Test, N400, 26

COMMENTS

  1. PBS Newshour Classroom

    English Arts & Culture STEM Civics & History Social Studies Be Informed. Stay Engaged. We'll send you ready-to-go current events lessons each morning Sign up Journalism in Action Civic...

  2. Current Events in the Classroom

    This collection supports thoughtful classroom conversations about current events. It includes: Flexible mini-lessons to help you address specific events and issues in the news. Printable explainers to introduce key terms and ideas that are essential to understanding today's news. Collections of resources on four key topics: global immigration ...

  3. Teaching Methods and Assessments to Use with CNN10 Current Events

    Teaching current events is an important part of civics education. Students need to know what's going on around the world to be engaged citizens. If you want to teach current events in class, CNN10 is a free online resource for doing so. If you're unfamiliar with CNN10, you can read more about why it's a great tool to use with your students here.

  4. Civics for All: Current issues and events

    Audience: Teacher Educational Use: Curriculum/Instruction This collection of lesson plans and resources supplement the Civics for All curriculum to aid in teaching current issues and events. These materials include two resource types: Full K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and/or 9-12 lesson plans ...

  5. Current Events Assignment

    Film and Guided Reading: "Our Federal Government--The Legislative Branch"

  6. Current Events Articles

    Documents of Freedom BRI's primary-source civics and government resource Heroes & Villains BRI's character education narrative-based resource BRI Curricula Being an American Plainest Demands of Justice Presidents and the Constitution Supreme Court DBQs Curriculum Components Current Events Current Events

  7. PDF Current Events Assignment

    CURRENT EVENTS ASSIGNMENT Complete the Current Event assignment below. Attach a copy of the article used for the assignment. Be prepared to share your issue with the class. 1. Bibliography of Source (Author's Name, Name of Article, Source, Date: page #'s) _____

  8. Civics

    By Michael Gonchar current events conversation What Students Are Saying About the End of Race-Based Affirmative Action in College Admissions Teenagers around the country weigh in on the Supreme...

  9. Current Events Assignment

    This assignment asks students to:select a current event or issue find an online news article about the event summarize the details of the topic using jot notes in a graphic organizer answer 2 short comprehension questions defend their suggested solution with 2 detailed arguments explain how 2 concep...

  10. Government & Civics: Current Events Activity & Media Literacy ...

    Immersive learning for 25 languages. Trusted tutors for 300 subjects. Adaptive learning for English vocabulary. This resource was designed for an AP U.S. Government &amp; Politics course, but can be used in any Government, Civics, or US History course that studies current events! The "Political Analyst" assignment is a great course-long student ...

  11. Teaching current events in government class

    It makes for an engaging Friday! They love discussing and debating current events. Teaching current events is a valuable skill in our current society. How do you teach current events and controversial topics? Reply in the comments. Get the current event assignment here! Government Debates. $6.00. Add to cart.

  12. Seven Ways to Bring Current Events Into the Classroom

    In social studies, current events can be used as an entry point to have students trace the causes of current problems to their source. ... The current events journal is a too-common assignment in ...

  13. Civics CHV2O Winter 2015

    Thursday April 16th - Friday April 17th : Current Events Assignment (In Google Drive) Friday April 17th: DUE Current Events Presentation Monday April 20th: Citizenship and Levels of Government - Follow along with 3 - Canada by Conviction in your Google Drive - Levels of Government Activity (online) - Matching Activity

  14. Current Event Assignment

    Description. Get your students involved in current events with this current event assignment! With this assignment, they research one current event from two news sources: one from the right and left source using a website called All Sides. They compare how the same topic can be biased and persuasive. There is a rubric to make grading easier.

  15. Civics & Economics Current Events Assignment 1 .docx

    Civics & Economics Current Events Assignment Focus: The Executive Branch Directions: Select a news article from a reliable and valid news source that is at least 300 words in length. The article must pertain specifically to the President or his Cabinet. You may not use editorials, entertainment or sports articles. The subject matter of the news article must be appropriate for school.

  16. Week 6 Reflection

    1. Choose a current event related to Civics or social studies education. Write a short summary of the event/article and provide a link to the article. Add your view or comment on the topic/article. The purpose of this assignment is to help you keep current with news as this is a requirement for all teachers and especially teachers of Social ...

  17. Free Current Events Worksheets for Your Classroom

    Whether you're assigning weekly current events summaries or conducting a single lesson, our free current events worksheets for grades 3-8 are the perfect companion. Inside, you'll find two options for current event summaries. In addition, our savvy news reader tips and activity will guide students through determining if an article is trustworthy.

  18. Results for current events weekly assignment

    Perfect for any civics or upper level social studies class, this weekly current events assignment requires students to keep on top of the news. Get students thinking critically about world and local news. Challenge them to apply the constitution to daily events. Teach them to develop critical analysis skills to determine bias.

  19. Civics & Economics Current Events Assignment.docx

    Civics & Economics Current Events Assignment Focus: The Judicial Branch Directions: Select a news article from a reliable and valid news source that is at least 300 words in length. The article must pertain specifically to the US Court System. You may not use editorials, entertainment or sports articles.

  20. Civics Current Events Assignment by Taylor Jandciu

    Global news Toronto Star 1. After all Rob Ford has done, and we complain about it why is he still mayor? 2. What is a good municipal government? 3. Why are their scandals to politicians relating to crac cocaine? Rob Ford This is the most recent images that is affiliated with my

  21. Civics Current Events Assignment- Gr.10.dotx

    CHV20 Civics and Citizenship Assessment of Learning- Current Events Presentation- OC (TACK) TITLE: (include the full title of the article, including the headline) Getting into nature could benefit your mental health during the pandemic SOURCE: (the full name of the newspaper/media source from which the article is taken) www.cbc.ca DATE: (the day the article appeared in the media, preferably ...

  22. Current Events Assignment Teaching Resources

    STEM Current Events Assignment: 12 Worksheets. Because STEM is an ever-evolving field, it is important for students to keep pace with recent developments, trends, and findings. This 14-page download provides information for students to complete a current events assignment based on a STEM article of their choice.

  23. Civics CHV2O Fall 2014

    Current Events Assignment Monday September 8th: DUE Current Events Presentation Tuesday September 9th: Government and People ... - in your Civics and Careers folders in your Google drive, complete the Types of Government Activity . Types of gov activity.doc: File Size: 116 kb: File Type: doc: