Cosmos Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 Has anyone taken or designed a course in current world issues? An idea floated into my head recently for a humanities credit (in place of regular history): spend one semester on 20th/21st century history studied chronologically, then spend the second semester delving into current issues in a topical structure. The history part seems straight forward, but I'm sort of at a loss when it comes to the current issues part. I was thinking one could select a few broad topics (say 3) to study, and spend perhaps four weeks on each one, looking at a variety of sources to look at issues related to the topic, considering the historical, social, and political factors. Then a final project of some sort. Possible topics off the top of my head poverty public health criminal justice human trafficking terrorism education gender issues racism foreign policy environment agriculture Of course then I look at these topics and think how could you possibly study any of them in even a cursory manner in just four weeks! We would have to limit the subject right from the start to be able to get into any sort of depth, wouldn't we? Any thoughts on a course like this? Suggested resources welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JanetC Posted March 24, 2015 Share Posted March 24, 2015 My daughter is taking current events in co-op. The teacher has each student pick a new topic every 10 weeks (30 week, once a week, co-op so three topics per student). They take turns teaching each other about the event they are following, and the teacher brings in other materials as well. The homework is to keep a log of how the topic is covered over the 10 weeks (is it front page news or end of the news cycle? is it covered differently in different types of media? etc.) She's learned to use Google Trends to see what the world is interested in and to analyze journalism sites for bias and point-of-view. For Christmas break they had a "predict the future" assignment to predict major news stories of 2015, which the teacher is saving to mail back to the students next January to see how they did. It's been a fun little class, and the fact that each student is following a different issue or story gives a good variety. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoot Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Check out Connect the Thoughts. They have current events modules in a topical format exactly like this. They are a bit longer than 4-weeks though, I believe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g1234 Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Might this be a helpful resource for you? I really like it. http://www.kellygallagher.org/article-of-the-week/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoot Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Might this be a helpful resource for you? I really like it. http://www.kellygallagher.org/article-of-the-week/ Ooh thanks for this. I really like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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