1. Set Focus
Pose these essential questions: How does living in poverty affect an individual? How does working to eliminate poverty benefit a society as a whole?
2. Read and Discuss
Have students read the article, marking key ideas and questions.
- Do you agree with the assessment that the world has made huge progress toward eliminating extreme poverty? Support your point of view with text evidence. (Students’ responses will vary. Students who agree with the assessment might cite statistics from the article about poverty rates dropping, such as Indonesia’s dropping to about 3 percent. Other students might argue that since poverty is an eminently fixable problem, we should have fixed it already and our progress is lagging.)
- How did Mexico and Brazil raise living standards? What did China do? (Mexico and Brazil gave money to the poor, requiring only health checkups and school attendance for children in return. China provided free elementary education and invested in infrastructure.)