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Including Current Events in the AP Government Curriculum
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by Richard Strean
Rye Country Day School
Rye, New York
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Classroom Options
Extracurricular Possibilities
TeenSpeak
Practical Matters
Advising how to teach both the Comparative and United States Government AP courses, the College Board's Course Description notes in bold print that "teachers must provide students with current examples and applications that may not be in the textbook used" in the course. Although studying current events is not part of the course outline itself, the institutions, behaviors, and policies of governments will remain abstractions for students -- to say nothing of boring them -- unless teachers illustrate applications and interactions with actual instances from contemporary politics. While mentioning examples in class can help, teachers have to involve students in firsthand learning about current events for them to master the "examples and applications" that bring the study of government to life. Even though covering just the political science content of AP Government courses may demand essentially all the time that is available, finding a way to include a current events component remains an essential part of teaching such classes.
The means for connecting students to current events includes activities both inside and outside the classroom. Assigning articles as part of the syllabus works well but may not work in every setting. Fortunately, extracurricular options exist as well.
Classroom Options
For a comparative politics course, no English-language source in the world can compare to the Economist. This weekly British publication brings news from all over the world in every issue. I divide students into six groups, each responsible for one region of the world. On a rotating basis, students present articles about their region to the whole class and write analyses about events in their region. In any event, they read each week just to keep up with events in their region. In this way, each student becomes one of the class experts on a region, while all students hear at least occasionally about every part of the world. The classical liberal philosophy that pervades the coverage in the Economist, while constituting a problematic bias to some, can work to your advantage as you explain the concept of ideology and teach about the political spectrum.
For the U.S. Government course, the Washington Post National Weekly Edition provides inside-the-Beltway news that illuminates U.S. politics. Your local newspaper will have some information about the actions of the president and Congress, but only the Washington Post covers such topics as bureaucratic politics and institutional interactions at the degree of detail and level of sophistication that the AP curriculum demands. I try to pick an article or two in each week's edition to assign to the class for a subsequent discussion.
Extracurricular Possibilities
Most schools offer a few clubs and activities that enhance students' familiarity with current political issues, such as the Model Congress and Model U.N. programs, which force students to develop an awareness of the issues that come before these bodies and the way these institutions are organized to address them. Students from many schools prepare roles and then play them at conferences. Participants from the northeastern U.S. and beyond congregate annually at Harvard University for a late-winter gathering, but such events exist in San Francisco and elsewhere. On a recent flight from Edinburgh to London, I happened to sit next to a student who was reviewing her notes en route to a Model U.N. event in Germany.
Another option is simply to create an in-house forum where students discuss current events. Depending on your school, a club that meets weekly may be best. With students often turning to e-mail to exchange ideas, an online conference could be appropriate. My school happens to have both, and I find that the participants in the face-to-face discussions have little overlap with those who prefer to exchange ideas online. In either case, a faculty moderator or supervisor is essential for keeping the discussion going and avoiding the vitriol that war, abortion, the Middle East, and other hot-button issues can produce.
One big advantage of extracurricular current events activities is that they need not be limited to students already in your courses. When I see a freshman or sophomore emerge as an active participant in one of these activities, I know I will be getting a government student who is already familiar with the contours of some of the issues we will be studying.
TeenSpeak
While writing for the school newspaper can be a valuable way for some students to engage in politics, an exciting option that may be more attractive is an independent publication called TeenSpeak Today for the Leaders of Tomorrow. Founded to give a political voice to teenagers, TeenSpeak publishes student work on a variety of topics. Since 1999, its quarterly journal has given students from the United States and several foreign countries the opportunity to interview notable figures in politics and other fields. To eliminate what their mission statement calls "the apathy and complacency many teens have" about current events, their publisher, the Institute for Young Journalists, hosted a Teen Summit on Terrorism and has made it possible for student journalists to interview several notable former and current government officials. One particularly energetic young man, a current AP U.S. Government student, interviewed both Senator John McCain and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Referring to these experiences, he noted that the opportunities had "furthered my understanding of American politics and how leaders form their opinions" on various matters of public policy. What strong praise for this program and what a productive way to connect the classroom study of government with its actual practice. TeenSpeak is always looking for new contributors.
Practical Matters
If you would like to utilize any of these resources, here are the particulars. Both the Economist and the Washington Post National Weekly will provide classroom subscriptions, one per student, starting and ending any week you choose, at a rate well below the cover price. For more information or to order a class subscription, call (212) 541-0521 for the Economist or (888) 780-8458 for the Washington Post National Weekly Edition. You can contact TeenSpeak at teenspk@optonline.net, Harvard Model Congress at hmc@hcs.harvard.edu, and the Harvard Model U.N. at info@hnmun.org.
Richard Strean teaches U.S. and comparative government, among other subjects, at Rye Country Day School, an independent school in Westchester County, New York. He holds a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University and has served as an AP Reader.
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