Toolkit
Democracy and Current Events
This toolkit provides lessons and strategies for helping your students make sense of issues in the news related to democracy.
At a Glance
Language
English — USSubject
- Civics & Citizenship
- Social Studies
Grade
6–12- Democracy & Civic Engagement
Overview
About This Toolkit
We live in a time of great tension and conflict in democracies around the world. Elections in recent years—both inside and outside of the United States—have revealed and exacerbated deep divisions within many democratic societies, raising fundamental questions about the strength and fragility of democratic institutions. The resources in this toolkit can help your students learn about the concept of democracy, the forces that strengthen or weaken it, and make connections to issues of democracy in the present.
Preparing to Teach
A Note to Teachers
Before teaching with the resources in this toolkit, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.
Inside This Toolkit
Assessing the Strength of Democracy
This mini-lesson 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.
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."
How Can We Evaluate If an Election Is Free and Fair?
This mini-lesson uses our Free and Fair Elections Explainer to help students reflect on the importance of elections, define the phrase “free and fair elections,” and learn about electoral systems in their region.
Political Polarization in the United States
This Explainer defines the term political polarization and provides information on how it impacts US politics and society.
Voting Rights in the United States
In this mini-lesson, students learn about the history of voting rights in the United States and consider how current voting laws in different states impact voters today.
A New Generation of Young Voters Emerges
Explore why young people tend to vote at lower rates and how they can get more involved in elections.
What Happened During the Insurrection at the US Capitol and Why?
This mini-lesson guides students to use an iceberg diagram to synthesize the events of January 6, 2021, and outline the complex array of causes at work.
How to Read the News Like a Fact Checker: a Media Literacy Strategy
Reading “laterally” is a key media literacy strategy that helps students determine the quality of online sources. This mini-lesson trains students to use this technique to evaluate the credibility of the news they encounter on social media feeds or elsewhere online.
Where Do We Get Our News and Why Does It Matter?
Explore media bias using recent news coverage of controversial events and help students think about what healthy news habits they want to adopt.
News Article Analysis
Help students identify and analyze the key characteristics of the three most common types of news articles.
How are you planning to use this resource?
Tell Us MoreAdditional Resources
Current Events in the Classroom
Explore classroom resources for making connections between current events and your curriculum, including activities and discussion strategies for high school and middle school students.
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Students create a plan for enacting change on an issue that they are most passionate about using the 10 Questions Framework.
10 Questions for the Present: Parkland Student Activism
Students identify strategies and tools that Parkland students have used to influence Americans to take action to reduce gun violence.
Getting to Know the 10 Questions
Students begin thinking about civic engagement in terms of their own passions and identities as they are introduced to the 10 Questions Framework.
10 Questions for Young Changemakers
This unit uses the 10 Questions Framework to explore two examples of youth activism: the 1963 Chicago schools boycott and the present-day movement against gun violence launched by Parkland students.
How Journalists Minimize Bias
Students experience the challenges to reporting objectively by writing a news piece and watching a video about how journalists counteract bias in the newsroom.
#IfTheyGunnedMeDown
Students explore the potential negative impact of images through the social media protest #IfTheyGunnedMeDown and develop a decision-making process for choosing imagery to represent controversial events.
The Impact of Identity
Students explore how identity impacts our responses to other people and events by examining a cartoon and analyzing an opinion poll from a week after Ferguson.
The Power of Images
Students examine how identity and biases can impact how individuals interpret images and experience the challenge of selecting images to represent news events, particularly connected to sensitive issues.
Preparing Students for Difficult Conversations
Students establish a safe space for holding sensitive conversations, before introducing the events surrounding Ferguson, by acknowledging people's complicated feelings about race and creating a classroom contract.
Social Media and Ferguson
Students explore the role of social media in Ferguson, apply information verification strategies to social media posts, and develop strategies for becoming critical consumers and sharers of social media.
Verifying Breaking News
Students evaluate the differences among news accounts about Ferguson, develop strategies for verifying news and information, and understand the challenges facing journalists as they cover complex, fast-moving events.
Unlimited Access to Learning. More Added Every Month.
Facing History & Ourselves is designed for educators who want to help students explore identity, think critically, grow emotionally, act ethically, and participate in civic life. It’s hard work, so we’ve developed some go-to professional learning opportunities to help you along the way.
Exploring ELA Text Selection with Julia Torres
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Listen to #DisruptTexts founder Julia Torres about taking a critical lens to text selection in ELA classrooms.
Working for Justice, Equity and Civic Agency in Our Schools: A Conversation with Clint Smith
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Virtual
Issues of equity and education have long existed in our country and continue to manifest today. How can writing and the power of one's voice help us respond to these disparities? Listen to writer and educator, Dr. Clint Smith, where we hear his poetry and reflections on working for justice, equity, and civic agency in our schools.
Centering Student Voices to Build Community and Agency
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Explore approaches to centering student voice, building authentic relationships and cultivating community with Molly Josephs, the creator of This Teenage Life, a youth-driven, story-sharing podcast that started as a school club.
The resources I’m getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable.
—
Claudia Bautista, Santa Monica, Calif
