Teaching Current Events in the Upper Grades

How do you teach currents events when those events invade your classroom? I ask this because there’s a tremendous amount of significant news coming from all corners of the world today, and sometimes it takes just one student’s raised hand to move your lessons in unexpected directions.

In 2001, I had been a teacher just three weeks when the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon were attacked on September 11. One of my students was particularly emotional the following day; his neighbor was a pilot on the aircraft flown into the north tower of the WTC. A student sitting beside him, very concerned for her friend, raised her hand and asked me a question. A very simple one. “Why did this happen?” From there, my eighth-grade language arts class turned into an informative, difficult, and cathartic 50 minutes that was a springboard for further searching, asking, and writing. To say that it was weeks before we could shed current events from our daily language arts lessons is no surprise.

Perhaps one of my greatest flaws as a language arts teacher was my willingness to entertain students’ questions about the world beyond thesis statements, adjective clauses, and active versus passive voice.

Tell me, do you even have time to teach current events? If you do have the time—and the willingness—what advice would you offer for best managing difficult topics? And are there particular resources you want to share?

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