Using a Range of Texts in the Geography Classroom

Geography is the study of the world around us, including people, the places they live and the environment. On the Geographical Association‘s website they state that geography as a subject “speaks directly to young people’s curiosity, wonder and concern for the world”. There are many ways in which we can ignite this curiosity and wonder within our students, one of which is through reading.

In a previous post I wrote about the importance of reading within the geography classroom, including an increase in vocabulary, increasing student progress and exam attainment, increasing student confidence and the further development of students subject knowledge. As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, there are a range of different types of texts that can be beneficial in our lessons, all of which have different purposes and advantages.

Using a range of different texts in lessons, exposes students to a wide range of words which can support the growth of their vocabulary, including both tier two and tier three words. Furthermore, different text types all have different purposes and intended audiences. This is beneficial to expose students to a variety of different writing styles and enables students to explore different interpretations and insights into the topic depending on the original purpose of the text.

What texts are useful in the geography classroom?

News Articles

News articles are useful for showing students real world, current examples of geography and for showing students the impacts of, or actions taken to, current events. This can provide students with an insight into the relevance and importance of geography as a subject and can show them the implications of events/decisions that they are studying. Furthermore, new articles can also provide students with useful statistics or quotes which can be used to support case studies.

Additionally, news articles can incite a useful discussion around the differing opinions and the importance of thinking critically about different sources of information. This can consequently be beneficial for encouraging students discuss and consider the validity of different sources and how reliable the information is, encouraging students to think critically about the facts they use and consider the purpose of different sources.

Poems

Poems can also be useful resources for geography lessons. Poems can engage students in the content that they are learning and provide a good insight into a topic. Through poems, students can explore different interpretations of places and they can be used as a source to encourage a discussion around how places are portrayed in different forms of art or literature. For example, I have used the poem ‘The Rhine’ by Lord Byron as part of a lesson where students look at different perceptions and interpretations of the Rhine across a range of different sources.

Furthermore, poems can also be used to introduce a concept and to help students to learn about the geographical topics we teach. We can also use poems as a prompt for a recall activity, where students annotate the poem with extra information that they can remember about the topic. The book “Poems for the Geography Classroom” by Mark Cowan is good for both of these purposes and provides poems for a range of both human and physical geography topics.

Books

Books have many uses and benefits in the geography classroom and there are books available which can link to all topics that we teach. Books, like poems, can help to engage students with the topic they are learning and provide many insights into the concepts, themes and place we cover. Through books, students can be transported to other places and gain an insight into other peoples experiences and perspectives, which they may otherwise not be exposed to. They can create a sense of awe and wonder in our students and allow them to explore the topics through the written word.

There are also many ways to use books in lessons. We can use books as a basis for a topic, and follow along with the chapters in the book as we progress through the unit. Alternatively, we can use short extracts of books to highlight a particular aspect of the unit or to provide a broader insight into a topic. I have used many books in lessons for all of these purposes and in the future I may write specific posts about using a few of these books, however for now here is a brief overview of some books that I have found useful in geography lessons and the topics they link to:

Using ChatGPT/DiffIt

ChatGPT can also be a useful resource for creating texts that can be used in the classroom. Through this, texts can be generated that meet our exact needs. For example, we can ask it to produce a text directly linked to our topic and including specific pieces of information that we want it to include. This means that the text is directly relevant and is beneficial when there is not an existing text that achieves this. Additionally, we can control the age that the text is written for, the style and the length to ensure it meets our exact specifications.

Similarly, DiffIt can also be used for this purpose, as well as having many other benefits. With DiffIt you can also enter a topic or question, select the reading age and adjust the length to produce a text meeting your needs in a similar way to ChatGPT. DiffIt also provides a list of sources showing where the information comes from, making it easy to reference, find extra information and check the credibility of the content. Furthermore, DiffIt also has many other uses, such as adapting existing texts to different reading ages, providing keyword list to go along side a text (including examples of the words in sentences) and providing a range of questions to go with the text.

Both of these websites are therefore useful resources, particularly when we cannot find the exact text that we want anywhere else.