Current Events Through Graphics

Weeklies such as Time, BusinessWeek, and The Economist all feature full-page infographics to encapsulate the main ideas behind their cover stories.

Source: BusinessWeek

Political platforms, census data, and financial metrics all come to life with vivid colors and easy-to-read numbers that engage the eye. Creative graphics, just like editorial cartoons, emerge from long paragraphs of text to convey quick take-away messages that remain in readers’ and students’ minds.

For example, last month we used the Time storm tracker maps to make sense of the recent devastating natural disasters affecting the nation.

Source: Time Magazine

Infographics are good to share for a quick five-minute opener to a Monday lesson, or for layering into Prezi or SMARTboard presentations. Also, students get used to recognizing infographics and begin to include them in their own reports.

We’ll try often to share graphics in the news that we use in our classrooms.