Current events/writing.

I teach independent study high school and our curriculum is more or less "set" within the school. I do not "give a lesson" in the traditional fashion however I have created a way to weave in East Asia into various parts of the curriculum. I am creating a "library" of stand alone articles from the newspaper. The L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times are excellent sources. On the New York Times website they even have a link to "countries" and all you have to do is select the country you are interested and many articles will pop up.
I pick things that are more cultural so the students do not necessarily need prior knowledge to understand the article. It also gives them the opportunity to compare cultures. For example,, "South Korea volunteers aim to help world's poor" gives the student an opportunity to explore volunteering around the world. We have a volunteering requirement as part of graduation. Another article "Without words, speaking different languages" examines social customs. Again students can compare and contrast. Another article "South Korea's homemakers don't want to be pegged" is interesting and I have students interview a "homemaker" here in the U.S. I am continuing to collect different articles and let the student pick what is interesting to them. It fits into many classes -- English, World History, Ethnic Studies, World Geography.
I use the standard five paragraph formulaic essay format.

I also include --

Title of Article
City
Country

Locate the country either on the internet or atlas

1. What continent?
2. What is the capital of the country?
3. What is the population of the country?
4. What is the population density of the country?
5. What is the population of the United States?
6. What is the population density of United States?

I find that the students enjoy this better than the usual prompts that are given for the CAHSEE prep. It is easier for them to write about something that they have a short reading about and isn't the typical reading that they have for English class. Since the articles are able to stand alone they do not get dated too fast.