I have been in an 8th grade World Geography class for the past two months, and it has been a blast! The later part of the course is divided into regions, in each region you have an endless possibility of content before you, which makes planning both exciting and difficult. It has however, made the use of current events in the classroom and seamless integration. They are a great way for students to to be brought up to speed on culture and politics in each of the regions that we have studied. For example, when we were learning about the Middle East as our region of study we were able to compare news articles about the events of the Arab Spring as they were unfolding last year, to how they are portrayed in the news a year later. We also found this great game (designed by a university to teach the Arab Spring) that we were able to play with our students in the class that incorporated the Arab Spring events. The link to game and all instructions and materials can be found here: Arab Spring Game. What was neat about the news articles from last year to this year was that we could really get into some media literacy. Ask the students questions like:
"How have the Article titles changed?"
"Do the authors attitudes and opinions change over time?"
"Are the events portrayed as positive things or negative things?"
"Do the content of the articles change drastically from one year to the next?"
"How do each of the different news outlets treat the events of the Arab Spring?"
"Do online news media tell the story differently than public radio?"
Both the nytimes online and the BBC allow you to access archived news articles (simple search by title/content and plenty of information comes up) as well as NPR, which provides an alternative media source for information. To ensure that your students are exposed to a wide variety of media outlets with varying slants and opinions, also think about using the Washington Post or Huffington Post to get some of your articles.
Likewise, when doing the unit on Europe there were plenty of current events that fit seamlessly into the unit and content. For example, over the weekend the recent elections in Europe resulted in some massive upheaval of staunch EU supporters; these events played perfectly into the essential question: Is Europe unifying or dividing?
A great way to introduce students to media bias would be to discuss the case of Turkey and the EU. There are a whole host of videos that you could use demonstrating the EU's position and likewise Turkey's position. You could also use political cartoons, and EU advertisements to enrich the content with a variety of resources. The discussion of Turkey and the European Union is a great way to integrate geography, history, government and sociology into your classroom, and tie Europe to the Middle East.
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