Teaching Geography through books (Part 1)

An update in July 2023:
As with Factfulness, this is a scheme of work based around a book and a series of lessons that I have loved teaching since first introducing in 2018. However, in an ever-changing world, elements of it will need updating and perhaps completely removing.

May 2020
Teaching Geography through books and texts
Over the last four years or so, the use of books and texts in geography seems to be very much in vogue and rightly so in my opinion. I first became aware of the power of this through the impressive schemes of work written by Paul Turner, Alan Parkinson and Matt Podbury around the book ‘Factfulness’ (link to book review) and indeed teaching ‘Factfulness’ is one of my favourite topics to teach at Key Stage 3. Having followed their lead, I have become a huge advocate of carefully selecting extracts, texts and books for use in teaching geography.

Why use a story or journey in geography?
In her book, ‘Geography Through Enquiry’, Margaret Roberts quite rightly reminds us that students do not necessarily come into the classroom wanting to know about life expectancy in Nigeria, the tax problem of India or the labour costs of China. So, if we are to engage them in their study of geography, we need to create a ‘need to know’. For me this is one of the most powerful elements of using a journey such as ‘The Almighty Dollar’; by building up a narrative and by following the journey, we create a need to know for our students and nurture their intellectual curiosity- they leave (hopefully!) wanting to hear the next bit.

This ties into the ideas of ‘curriculum stories’ that Tom Sherrington blogged about in 2018 (here) referring to the work of Daniel Willingham. In his book ‘Why Don’t Students Like School’, Willingham suggests that stories bring the following advantages:
·      Connections are made clear because students know that events don’t happen randomly in stories.
·      Stories have long been found to be a more interesting way of delivering content.
·      Content is more likely to be remembered because students are forced to think about the story’s meaning throughout.

Of course, in geography, we’re often telling a story of some kind- using a narrative to link ideas and events. But using a book allows this to be intensified; an extended narrative is followed, working as a thread that ties together several complex ideas and allows us to avoid schemes of work being reduced to accumulations of content. Done well, this can be the key to unlocking the distance between what is taught and how well it is remembered (Myatt, 2018).

The Almighty Dollar as an example
I’m going to start with a request here: PLEASE read the book before using it to underpin a scheme of work. As I allude to here, so much of the power of the story will be implicit in your teaching having read the text and I fear this will be significantly lost if the resources shared are used without the full background knowledge from the book.

So, assuming that you’ve read the book, why does it make such a good scheme of work?
Prior to using this text, I had always just jumped straight into teaching development and later, globalisation. Of course, I explained the concept of the global economy, I explained the interconnections between countries and I explained that different countries play a different role in this but to what extent were these introductory explanations effective? These are complex ideas; complex economic and social processes and I fear that previously I may have been guilty of teaching them in a way that lacks meaning to our students.

Thus, in using the journey of a dollar around the world as a scheme of work in Year 7, I think it:

• fosters the ability of students to ‘think geographically’- to make connections between phenomena at a variety of different scales.

• develops the locational knowledge of students through the repeated mapping of the journey throughout the scheme of work.

• builds essential knowledge of the key geographical concepts of development, interdependence, inequality and globalisation.
  
  As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments and reflections via email or through Twitter.
  
  To read more:
  Roberts, M. (2013) Geography Through Enquiry, Geography Association.
  Willingham, D. (2009) Why Don’t Students Like School?, Jossey-Bass.
  Myatt, M. (2018) The Curriculum Gallimaufry to coherence, John Catt.
  
  Tom’s Sherrington’s blog can be read here.
  Alan’s extensive ‘GeoLibrary’ of book recommendations can be perused here.

Finally, please remember to credit if the resources below are used.