Teachers often ask students to "list the worlds you think of" when, e.g., they say "Africa." Fine! That's a good way to begin to test stereotypes and students' perceptions. We'd like to go it one better though. Give students a world map and ask them to draw or write on it what they associate with as many places on their maps as time allows. Having students use maps in this way allow you to check their perceptions and misperceptions of more than one world area at a time. Further, experiences indicates that students response are more apt to reflect their initial, "gut-level" responses because they are being asked to cover a wider range of places in a short time, thus they don't have time to dredge up additional responses about a single place designed either to shock or to please their teacher. A variation is to provide students with a large number of illustrations, photographs (post cards work well) or other visuals of an assortment of world areas. Have them divide these visuals into groups they associate with the various world areas, and then justify their selections to their classmates.