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This morning I considered writing about two newspaper articles, both
appearing in the Washington Post among other places. The first
article, titled U.S. Policy on Iran Evolves Towards Diplomacy states,
"On the Middle East, Bush pushed his notion that greater democracy
will bring stability to the region. But many foreign officials instead
argue that stability can be achieved only if there is peace between
Israelis and Palestinians."

The second article entitled, Thai Prime Minister Deposed states:
"On Wednesday, in his first public appearance since seizing power,
Sonthi asked for the public's support and declared the coup was
necessary to end serious conflicts within Thai society that Thaksin
had created, the Associated Press reported. "We would like to reaffirm
that we don't have any intention to rule the country and will return
power to the Thai people as soon as possible," he said a brief television
address. He was flanked by the three armed forces chiefs and the head
of the national police force.

In order to develop sophisticated understandings of the world students
should be able to read, synthesize and compare the major points of
newspaper articles on different topics.


Discussion Starters

  • Divide your class into groups of three or four and ask half the
    groups to read one of these newspaper articles and the other
    half to read the other article. Ask each group to briefly
    summarize the article and note the main points of each. Then
    ask groups that have considered different articles to pair up
    with one another. In these larger groups ask students to first
    report on their article to the other group, then consider ways in
    which these articles might be compared and finally develop a
    statement on what these two different articles might point out
    about the world in general.

  • President Bush argues that democracy will promote security.
    Ask students if they agree with this concept or not. You might
    have them write quick-blog-writes in which they state their
    opinions on this issue. Encourage students to support their
    opinions by pointing to evidence from the world. You might
    then reconvene the class and hold a discussion.

  • Newspaper articles merely present surface level ideas. In other
    words, a specialist would never be satisfied knowing merely
    what is in the newspaper about his/her topic. Newspapers can,
    however, spark questions that lead to further investigation and
    therefore the production of new knowledge. Ask students to
    select a newspaper article, or select one for them, and write
    down five questions that they would like to investigate further.
    You might choose to have them investigate the questions. But
    the simple process of identifying the questions is educationally
    productive.

  • Many students will not be able to identify Thailand, Israel, Iran,
    or Iraq on the map. (In my opinion this is very sad, considering
    the frequency in which most of these countries are in the
    news.) Identify these nations on the map for students. Or, even
    better, ask studentsto identify the countries for themselves,
    using available resources.
Democracy and Security
September 21, 2006
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