Current Issues
Classroom activities to engage students in learning about and discussing issues in the news
Students use a remarkable 1957 comic book to learn about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the real nature of the civil rights movement.
Students nominate their own "person of the year"; read and discuss Time magazine's article naming "the protester"; and write new captions for photos of the protesters.
Students consider nonviolence as a strategy for intentionally building public support in both the Civil Rights Movement (as expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr.) and the Occupy movement.
In this lesson about a complex issue, students read a description of the current crisis in the European Union and conflicting views about how to address it, including the debate over "austerity" vs. "stimulus." Then they participate in "fishbowl" discussion of the issue.
The nation's total student debt load now exceeds $830 billion, and the problem has touched off protests. Two student readings explore the scope of the student debt crisis and some proposals for dealing with it. Discussion questions follow each reading.
Through two readings and class discussion, students think critically about the effect of corporate campaign donations on our political system and consider efforts to reform campaign finance.
Readings and activities to help students explore the conflicting views, history, and possibilities for peace among Palestinians and Israelis.
Two readings and accompanying activities explore whether the torture of prisoners is the result of a few individuals acting alone or of broader government decisions.
Have U.S. forces violated international law in their treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, & Guantanamo? Has that treatment amounted to torture or war crimes? If so, who should be held responsible? Here, we assemble a wide collection of excerpts from original materials to use as a basis for...
In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent historic ruling on the University of Michigan's affirmative action program, we offer four lessons and a rich assortment of original source materials.