Enrichment

Using books and stories in the Geography curriculum

Fiona Sheriff

28th January 2025

Academic reading has become a prominent part of raising attainment in secondary schools and there are many books that can be used in geography to promote discussion, and enable students to read around the subject.

But what are the benefits of using books and stories rather than the trusty old textbook?

Activities such as ‘Guided Reading’ and completing comprehension activities within lessons give students the opportunity to not only read a variety of texts which enable them to improve their subject knowledge but to also hear the stories of real people – bringing a richness to our geography curriculum. Stories allow our students to be exposed to a range of voices which helps to ensure that our curriculums are diverse and showcase opinions and viewpoints which students may not otherwise hear.

Creating a classroom library is a great way to encourage students to read. Reading snippets of stories and allowing students to borrow those books from you is a fantastic way to build a love of reading. My Year 9s were so drawn into the stories from the book ‘Asylum Speakers’ by Jaz O’Hara that many of them wanted to borrow my copy to find out more about the people whose stories were being told. We had used the story of Meseret and had mapped his journey from Eritrea to the UK. Meseret was the same age as my students, and they were so struck by his story that they were desperate to know more, and what they could do help people in the same position.

Our Year 7s follow the story of the 'Almighty Dollar' by Dharshini David. Based on Kate Stockings’ scheme of work, we have adapted this as it gives students a brilliant understanding of globalisation and trade as well as improving their locational knowledge. We read extracts from the book each lesson and students complete a range of activities on the journey, following the dollar through each country. We use resources such as Gap Minder and Dollar Street to show levels of development as well as using the book to help students understand different industrial sectors. Students love to follow the story of the dollar, and despite the book being quite a challenging read for Year 7, they embrace the challenge! The text is adapted to their reading level, and it is a fantastic opportunity to introduce a range of geographical vocabulary.

In Year 8 in our ‘Rumbling Planet’ unit our students study extracts from ‘Disaster by Choice’ by Ilan Kelman. We focus on Haiti, comparing the 2010 earthquake with the more recent 2021 event. Using the text helps students to understand if these events really are natural disasters or disasters of our own making. Again, this is a challenging text for Year 8 – but careful selection of key parts of the text and adapting it to meet the needs of our students, gives them the opportunity to read more academically – stretching and challenging their abilities and improving their geographical literacy and understanding.

There are many texts which could be used across the curriculum. Adding richness and variety, encouraging a love of reading and improving our students geographical literacy. The lists below give more examples of texts which could be used for a variety of topics. Some of these are not text heavy – but instead provide beautiful illustrations and case study spreads which could be useful at any key stage.

Further support

A few years ago Calvin Hand (@MrHand__) very generously shared his huge bank of guided reading resources with the geography teacher community on Twitter, and although he is not active on the platform at the moment, the tweet sharing these is still pinned to his profile, and is a fantastic resource.

You can also download a copy of Fiona's presentation for the RGS - 'Beautiful books to inspire curiosity in the classroom' (download link at the bottom of this page).

Download Fiona's presentation for the RGS - 'Beautiful books to inspire curiosity in the classroom' here.

Fiona Sheriff

Fiona Sheriff is an experienced Head of Geography in Northampton and Co-Head of Education and Outreach for the UK Polar Network. She is an experienced examiner, an author, a regular speaker for the RGS and has been a Fawcett Fellow. In 2024 Fiona was a recipient of the GA Award for Excellence and the RGS Ordnance Survey Award for Excellence in Secondary Geography Education.

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