Created in partnership with Girl Rising, this teaching idea invites students to engage with the story of a young refugee and to consider the power of storytelling to spark empathy.
Teaching Current Events: Global Immigration
There are more than 250 million migrants around the world, including more than 65 million refugees. Explore the policies, debates and human stories behind this defining global issue.
Teaching Idea
Global Immigration
Justice & Human Rights
What Is Our Obligation To Asylum Seekers?
This teaching idea provides critical context for helping students understand international and US policy regarding asylum and its human consequences.
Teaching Idea
Global Immigration
The Many Faces of Global Migration
Use recent photographs to help students connect to the experiences of migrants and to better understand the scale of global migration.
Teaching Idea
Global Immigration
The Continuing Debate Over Immigration
Use the following lesson and activities with your students to provide context for the 2018 U.S. immigration debate over who can come to the United States, who can stay, and what it means to be American. Recent news and debates may seem especially combative, but they echo earlier moments in US history when Americans questioned who could become a citizen.
Current Events Teaching Tools and Strategies
Use these teaching strategies and resources to strengthen your students' media literacy skills.
Teaching Strategy
News Article Analysis
Help students identify and analyze the key characteristics of the three most common types of news articles.
Teaching Idea
Media Literacy
Where Do We Get Our News and Why Does It Matter?
Help students examine their current events consumption, explore the role of social media in the spread of misinformation, and think about what healthy news habits they want to adopt.
Page
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Plan Ahead With Our Teacher Checklist
View our teacher checklist for preparing to teach current events to middle and high school students. We include recommended news sources, key questions to ask yourself as you plan, and strategies for navigating emotionally difficult or complex topics.
Unit
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Media Literacy
Race in US History
Facing Ferguson: News Literacy in a Digital Age
Help students become informed and effective civic participants in today's digital landscape. This unit is designed to develop students' critical thinking, news literacy, civic engagement, and social-emotional skills and competencies.
Page
Media Literacy
Partner Resource: Checkology
Our partners at the News Literacy Project developed the media literacy resource Checkology, a set of lessons designed to help students learn how to critically evaluate and interpret news sources.
Past Highlights
Explore past teaching idea resources we created to address breaking news stories.
Teaching Idea
After Parkland, Students Choose to Participate
As students take action after Florida's school shooting, introduce a framework for civic participation in your classroom. Facing History has also created suggested discussion questions to help you have the difficult conversations that follow traumatic violent events. Use these questions as a starting point to spark a dialogue around the ways youth can get involved, be Upstanders, and make their voices heard in their own communities.
Teaching Idea
Democracy & Civic Engagement
Race in US History
Understanding #TakeAKnee
Help students examine the questions about "patriotism" that are at the heart of the national debate over professional athletes taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice.
Teaching Idea
Democracy & Civic Engagement
The Kavanaugh Hearings
Provide students with a chance to process, reflect, and deliberate with others about the US Senate hearings in the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court.
Teaching Idea
Antisemitism & Religious Intolerance
Responding to The Tree of Life Shooting in Pittsburgh
The mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue capped off a week of hate crimes and political violence in the United States. These teaching ideas help teachers and students process the events and reflect on what they mean for them and their communities.
Get More Tips for Teaching Current Events
Sign up to receive our latest teaching ideas in a short biweekly email.
Want more teaching tips and strategies to address current events with your students?
Visit our Current Events page to see our latest teaching ideas and strategies for connecting breaking news stories to your curriculum.
Search Our Global Collection
Everything you need to get started teaching your students about racism, antisemitism and prejudice.