Teachers searching for ways to engage their students with current events have a number of options. A weekly current-events quiz is available to Journalism Education Association members. The questions are written by Kent State University Professor Candace Perkins Bowen, who also directs the university’s Center for Scholastic Journalism. The quizzes encourage students to be involved with the world around them, as well as to parse fact from fiction while reading the news.

“How can students tell if their writing ‘sounds right’ if they never read or listen to commercial media?” Bowen said. “How can they be journalists if they don’t know what’s going on around them?”

The current-events website Student News Daily publishes news articles from established news organizations and offers comprehension and critical thinking questions, as well as weekly quizzes. Answers are provided to teachers through a free email service. The website also provides additional background resources, such as video clips, maps and links to give students a better understanding of the news stories. Student News Daily resources are also available on Edmodo and on a current events app.

Other options to help students engage with the news include:

NewzBrain is available in an interactive white board game and a weekly print format. It provides new questions each week based on news from the past week.

Newspapers in Education provides classroom resources available through local newspapers.

Washington Post NIE Weekly News Quiz

New York Times Weekly News Quiz

Knowledge Unlimited’s Current Events Quiz