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Author: Luke O'Connor

New Readers Teach Civics to Elementary Schoolers

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

iCivics is expanding its offering of elementary-level resources with a robust collection of readers for K-5 students. These resources were made in partnership with leading U.S. publisher Teacher Created Materials (TCM) and give educators high-quality and engaging content that prepares elementary school students for critical thinking, thoughtful discussions, and civic responsibilities.

Each iCivics Reader is standards-aligned and includes lesson plans, student activity pages, assessment, and game cards, as well as links to digital resources like ebooks and a multimedia library. Topic-driven books help students explore social issues, understand government, make logic-based arguments, and consider different options. These books are included as part of a kit that helps students gain civic knowledge, practice civic skills, and develop a civic mindset. They also aim to promote civic discourse and critical thinking through easy-to-use lessons. All six grade levels, kindergarten through fifth grade, have a kit. Kindergarten through third grade are available now, and the fourth and fifth grade kits will be available later this year.

The kits include:

  • A management guide that features research, pacing plans, and best practices
  • Lesson plans that integrate literacy and civic education
  • 10 high-interest, nonfiction books (6 copies each)
  • Civics Game Cards that reinforce lessons in fun, collaborative ways (6 decks)
  • Digital and Multimedia Resources, including Professional Development videos by iCivics, read-along ebooks, videos, songs, and audio recordings

The kits merge TCM’s publishing expertise and content created by iCivics, which over the past decade has developed a wide range of games and hundreds of digital lesson plans that teach the fundamentals of civic education. Founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2009, iCivics materials have become the gold standard in civic education as they are used by more than 9 million students every year and trusted by more than 140,000 teachers in every state.

Prepare students for civic engagement as community leaders and build literacy skills with the exciting iCivics Readers.

Purchase a set of readers for your classroom today!

Tackling Civics: 5 Project Problems iCivics Helps Solve

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

In my 21 years of teaching middle school, I have experienced many PD sessions and received countless books, tech apps, teaching “guides,” and “supports” from administration. Very few of these have truly improved my life or my professional practice. (Perhaps you can relate?)

The ones that were valuable had one thing in common: they solved a problem. They didn’t cause more work for me; they reduced my workload. They were not just cutting-edge flashy fads; they offered real shortcuts and long-lasting solutions. 

As I’ve taken on the new 8th grade civics project requirement the past few years, I have experienced many problems…and I finally found one solution to all of them: the iCivics workbook.

Here are five problems that the iCivics workbook helps resolve.

Problem 1: Dealing with Reality

Stuff happens, and we know to expect the unexpected (school assemblies, illnesses, new students moving in, global pandemics, etc.). As I’ve learned the hard way, civics projects can get stalled or accelerated at any time by a single email reply, a guest speaker visit, or another real-life development. 

iCivics’ Solution: Their curriculum material never prescribes a certain amount of time for each lesson, and it does not presume that all your students in a class are working on the same project. The lessons and activities are deliberately ambiguous: “you” could be an individual student, a small group, or the entire class. This leaves it up to you [the teacher] to divide students however you like. They could split into groups halfway through the project, or a single student could “go rogue” with their own project idea and continue following the workbook.

In terms of daily implementation, there is also a lot of leeway. You could have whole-class read-alouds of the text on workbook pages, or assign them as homework, or some combination. (This links back to the solution to Problem 3: the passages and activities are generally accessible to everybody for independent success.) If a class discussion or guest-speaker visit goes longer for one group than others, you could let them catch up by reading or doing a certain page of their workbook before tomorrow’s class. Hooray for simplicity!

If you get squeezed for time near the end of the unit*, then perhaps some or all students don’t reach Stage 6 (“Reflecting and Showcasing”). That’s OK, because, in my humble opinion, that is the least important aspect of the project. Implementing their action plan from Stage 5 could be a success in itself, with no glitter glue or slide transitions required.

*If that’s never happened to you, then please let me take you out for a drink or coffee so I can learn your secrets of success! Haha, just kidding; of course, this has happened to you.

Problem 2: Properly Pacing the Project

In my experience, students usually take too long choosing their topic and then go too fast in developing their plan — often they even meld the two steps together in the early days of the project: “Let’s make an Instagram account right now to tell people about the city’s recycling program!” Whoa, whoa there, kids, let’s think this through. When you are leading this project for the first time, it is tough to know when to push the class along versus when to let them marinate on a decision, especially when you are developing most of the material yourself.

iCivics’ Solution: Many pages in the workbook prompt students to slow down, think carefully, seek multiple solutions, and evaluate possibilities. Lesson 3.2 “Who You Gonna Call?” is not about busting ghosts; it’s about considering the differences between individual, group, and government actions to a community problem. At the end, students are prompted to determine which would be the best approach to a scenario and explain their answer. Twelve pages later, they apply the same judgment to their real-life topic, which should lead them to a well-selected government action as their project’s plan. Image removed.

Page 76 is another good example, where students list potential influencers and rank their connection on a 1-5 scale. That should prevent them from just contacting the first people they think of.

For situations where you need to nudge the class forward, set a time limit for completing a certain page. In certain cases, you might have to take Executive Command to break the logjam. Later on, everyone can turn back to that workbook page to judge the value of that decision. Also, I think it’s valuable to have a physical workbook where you can point forward through the text: “Look, folks: we’re on page 28 and there is a lot more work left to do!” 

In case you’re wondering, social media campaigns first appear on workbook page 78, and there is a “Build Your Toolbox” activity page that forces students to carefully consider the value of tactics like creating an Instagram account to spread awareness. Maybe, just maybe, that’s not the best bet. 

Problem 3: Effective Organization

The wonderful & terrible thing about civics projects is that they are real-life efforts. That means things get messy & complicated quite quickly, especially when you are juggling multiple groups and/or classes. I have literally lost sleep at night trying to keep everything straight, and developing then re-developing organization systems for classwork. Without a strong structure, everything will collapse like a house of cards.

iCivics’ Solution: The workbook lays out six stages that provide structure by “starting wide” at the community level, then guiding students to narrow their focus toward a single issue, developing skills to research that issue in multiple ways, seeking outside help from influencers and decision-makers, and finally designing their “pitch” to persuade productive action. In reality, it is not as simple as that sentence makes things sound, but the workbook is chopped into lessons (3-6 pages and 1-3 class periods each) that build on each other. You might be able to skip one or more lessons, depending on your students’ prior knowledge and the project topic they select, but you probably won’t need to add anything. 

Furthermore, I cannot overemphasize the value of having a single container for all the lessons and most (maybe all) of the students’ academic output, notes, and reflections … instead of grappling with loose papers all over the place and/or clicking through dozens of shared GoogleDocs! That is a very big One Less Thing.

Problem 4: Appropriate Assessment

How do you grade each student fairly, especially if you’re running a whole-class civics project? Assigning quizzes seems time-consuming, and waiting until the end for a formal unit test probably doesn’t seem great either. And what are you actually supposed to assess, anyway?!

iCivics’ Solution: In the workbook, each of the six stages has a 4-column rubric at the end where you can individually mark students’ progress on the activities. You could also re-create that iCivics chart as a Google Sheet, a rubric in your LMS, or whatever else works for you. Personally, I prefer assigning open-ended reflections throughout the project. That is also built into the workbook, with at least one prompt per stage. Each lesson in the Teacher’s Guide has a header of learning objectives that remind you about the skills & knowledge that could be assessed after the activities. That will help avoid the common syndrome of Oh My Gosh Everything Matters Paralysis.* 

For example, lesson 3.3 addresses the differences between government regulations vs. provisions and restrictions vs. benefits. If students don’t get those terms straight, remember that the main purpose is for them to identify “tax-supported facilities and services” — not a perfect record of distinguishing types of service. Let’s just make sure that kids know there are multiple specific ways for local & state governments to impact people’s actions. In the “Apply To Your Issue” workbook page at the end of that lesson, students should be able to successfully identify at least one potential government solution to the problem they’ve been researching. BOOM! Mission accomplished.

*OMGEMP is a serious condition. Side effects include nausea, insomnia, muscle spasms, and caffeine addiction. If symptoms last for longer than 24 hours, seek professional attention.

Problem 5: Finding Age-Appropriate Curriculum Material

Real-life civics projects are challenging enough without pausing every two sentences to define a half-dozen vocabulary words, dangit! All the other existing teaching guides that I’ve seen are geared toward high-school students in terms of reading level and conceptual framework. The curriculum that my school district has used the past few years needed a lot of modification to work for all our 8th graders, to the point that we were basically re-designing the whole (expensive) thing!  

iCivics’ Solution: The Civics Projects workbook is student-friendly in terms of page layout, font size, and overall approach.

For example, I really like the several stories that run through the six stages, like Amir’s project which introduces the concepts of influencers and stakeholders, then reappears 20 pages later as the basis of the “speech sandwich”. The spiraling of examples & concepts will definitely work for my 8th graders, and I imagine it would for high-schoolers, as well. 

I also greatly appreciate the skill-building pages like “Research Time” in Stage 3, and the appendix pages for “Surfing Success” and “Finding SMEs.” These could be helpful reminders of previously-learned skills, or a really good introduction to concepts of media literacy and source selection — depending on your students’ needs and experience. These are some of the elements I had to add myself when I used a different civics curriculum (which shall remain unnamed).

I am not a textbook or workbook person. I have always been more of a “control enthusiast,” like Patrick Warburton in those rental car ads: producing and redesigning my own teaching material pretty much all the time. However, it pains me to admit that with the civics project there were too many problems I could not solve myself. The Civics Projects workbooks are the only curriculum guide I would ever use from cover to cover.

If you would like to use iCivics’ workbooks to assist with implementing civics projects in your classroom, check them out by clicking the button below!

Purchase the Workbook Now

Written by Andrew Swan

Andrew is an 8th grade Social Studies teacher at Bigelow Middle School in Newton MA, where he has worked for 17 years. He has been a member of the iCivics Educator Network since 2019 and served as a reviewer of the iCivics workbook. Andrew is also a co-moderator of the popular SSChat Network that hosts weekly social studies chats on Twitter with the #sschat hashtag. Follow him at @flipping_A_tchr.

Measuring Up: Civics Projects and Assessment

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

If you’re a Massachusetts civics teacher, then you’ve been trying to figure out how best to lead the required 8th grade civics project. You’ve probably asked yourself: How am I going to approach this? How will I keep students engaged? How many weeks will I need? Then, after you’ve mapped out your ideas and expectations, you may find you still have a burning question.

How am I going to grade all this?

It’s a fair question. The implementation of the civics project can take six to eight weeks of class time, and that’s a long stretch to go without concrete assessment. So what can you do?

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) Civics Project Guidebook provides some ideas. It includes a general outline of assessment categories and sample competencies for making your own rubrics. But what if you need weekly grades in your gradebook? What if you want more direct assessments of student knowledge and skills? This is where the iCivics workbook can make your life a little easier.

An Abundance of Activities

The Civics Projects Workbook by iCivics follows the six stages of project development outlined in the DESE Guidebook. In each stage, there are several lessons consisting of a reading and follow-up activities. You can select the activities you want and grade each individually on an effort scale. Or, you can assign all the activities in a given stage and grade them as a group. The workbook provides a rubric at the end of each stage where all the activities can be combined for an overall stage grade.

As for the activities, the iCivics workbook provides plenty of options. Variety is the spice of life, and the same is true for civics project assessment.

  • Do you want students to write? Each stage in the iCivics workbook, concludes with a writing prompt. The prompt asks students to reflect on something they learned or a skill they gained during that section of the project. The prompts are accessible by all students, but if they aren’t challenging enough, you can add another question, require specific examples, or ask students to write a story that describes what they learned. If that’s still not challenging enough, you can turn the reflection prompts into oral presentations or even formal essay assignments.
     
  • Would you rather have quizzes? The iCivics workbook can help you create simple vocabulary quizzes. In all the readings, new concepts and terminology are printed in bold. You can easily skim the book’s pages to collect enough vocabulary for a quiz at the end of each stage.

All of this sounds good, but the biggest challenges in assessing the civics projects come when students are completing their action steps. This is when students are working in their groups to complete research, develop public awareness materials, conduct interviews, or plan events. How do you assess individual progress when each student and each group have different assignments? The iCivics workbook has you covered.

Assessing Action Steps

It contains several graphic organizers where students can show their research and planning. Each organizer provides another assessment opportunity. The workbook also includes individual and group tracking sheets. This is where students can list their weekly goals and track what they actually accomplished. The tracking sheets give students support for managing their work, and they give you a quick way to evaluate their progress. Lastly, in the workbook’s Appendix, there are templates for writing emails and scripting voicemail messages when contacting their local leaders. The templates can be completed by all students (not just the ones sending requests) and they can serve as yet another form of assessment.

So, while you’re planning your approach to the civics project this year, remember that iCivics has your back. Our workbooks provide the content and structure students need to be successful. And they provide you with enough assessment opportunities to keep your gradebook full.

Purchase the Workbook Now

Written by Lora De Salvo

Lora De Salvo is a Curriculum Associate at iCivics. She has 16 years of experience teaching U.S. history and U.S. government courses at the two-year college and high school levels. She has also worked as a training specialist with the Anti-Defamation League facilitating anti-bias and anti-bullying programs with middle and high school students.

Bringing Civics to Life for Students Through Film

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said, “For me, civic education is the key to inspiring kids to want to stay involved in making a difference.” When students understand how government functions and the role that people play in shaping a democracy, they begin to see the value of civic education that Sotomayor highlights. 

One way to allow students to step inside of a civic experience and gain a deeper understanding of the function of government and the role that they play is through film. When used properly, films can be a powerful educational tool to develop critical thinking skills. Educators who have used film in their materials agree. One resource you might use is Journeys in Film.

Journeys In Film is a non-profit organization that believes in the power of films to open minds, inspire an interest in learning, amplify issues, and compel viewers to make a difference as they engage in their communities. “Journeys In Film introduced me to films that can have a great impact for change in the classroom,” an educator recently shared after a professional development workshop highlighting Journeys in Film’s materials.

The Journeys in Film library of films with corresponding free resources (CORE-based curricula and/or discussion guides) includes 22 films that have dedicated Social Studies Lesson Plans, many with civics components. The lessons are designed to be simple enough for the beginning teacher to manage easily, with all materials camera-ready. And of course, all lessons are standards-based, so the teacher can readily incorporate film into an established set of learning goals.

Eager to try using films in your classroom? Here are some iCivics resources that pair well with Journeys in Film lesson plans:
 

  • A favorite among Journeys in Film’s offerings for middle school classrooms in teaching civics is Please Vote For Me, a documentary about an elementary classroom election in China. The curriculum includes A Lesson In Democracy, which would pair well with many of the Politics and Public Policy lessons available through iCivics.
     
  • The film He Named Me Malala, a documentary highlighting Malala Yousafzai’s advocacy work, includes a lesson about Working For Change and a discussion of What Can You Do?, which can be used in combination with iCivics’ County Solutions lesson plan.
     
  • For teaching about First Amendment rights, consider the film The Post, which is about the Washington Post’s effort to publish information about the Pentagon Papers. Journey in Film’s curriculum includes lessons such as The Supreme Court and Freedom of the Press, Why Is a Free Press So Important?, and First Amendment Rights and the Student Press. iCivics also provides resources that can be used in conjunction with Journey in Film’s, including The Role of Media, NewsFeed Defenders, and Student Expression.

Written by Jennifer Fischer

Jennifer is a writer, film producer, and educator whose work focuses on highlighting shared human experiences to cultivate empathy and understanding. Her films have screened across the United States and abroad and have been featured by NBCLatino, ABC, Univision, Fusion, NBCBLK, Vice News, and others, with her film “THE wHOLE” premiering at Amnesty International’s 50th Anniversary Human Rights Conference. She has developed curriculum for LA’s BEST, the Metta Center for Nonviolence, and in conjunction with the Outreach Center for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, where she received her M.A. She is currently the Outreach Director for Journeys in Film. You can connect with Journeys in Film on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

New Exploring Primary Sources Mini-Site Offers Free Primary Source Teaching Tools

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

Primary sources get students closer to historical events and offer varying perspectives that spark inquiry, discussion and deeper learning. 

iCivics’ Exploring Primary Sources website, supported by a grant from the Library of Congress, is an exciting new resource for K–12 educators and their students. By using the website, you will:

  • Discover innovative, free products from iCivics and our partners that offer interactive, engaging learning experiences with primary sources
  • Build your knowledge, skills and confidence teaching with primary sources with our collection of professional development videos
  • Simplify lesson planning with this curated collection of high-quality primary source tools, including iCivics’ DBQuest, Eagle Eye Citizen, Engaging Congress, History’s Mysteries: Historical Inquiry for Elementary Classrooms, Journalism in Action, KidCitizen, and Voices for Suffrag
Explore the Website

Primary sources take students beyond the textbook and help them see the past (and present) in new ways. We’re excited to help make primary sources more accessible to you and your students.

New Game, New Partnership: Promoting Global Civics with the Council on Foreign Relations

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

As global tensions rise in Europe and the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, there is an increased urgency to help students build an understanding of U.S. foreign policy.

Our new game, Convene the Council, created in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), uses digital gameplay to teach important foreign policy and global civics lessons in an engaging way. Students who play Convene the Council step inside the Situation Room and assume the role of the president of the U.S., making foreign policy decisions through 20 different fictional foreign policy scenarios that reveal how foreign and domestic policy are intertwined and how decisions made in one corner of the world can affect us all. The game’s scenarios challenge students to use critical thinking skills to determine how the U.S. should respond based on recommendations from the president’s closest advisors.

As two organizations with the shared goal of empowering students and lifelong learners with the know-how needed to be responsible citizens, we are proud to have partnered with CFR on this game and to bring global civics, which expands and modernizes the field of civics education for our globalized era, into the spotlight.

This game was made in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations, with support from The Peter G. Peterson Fund – New York Community Trust.

Play the Game

Meet the Council on Foreign Relations

CFR Education focuses on global civics, providing students with the knowledge, skills, and perspective—the global literacy—required to navigate our interconnected world, and preparing them to confront our era’s most pressing issues.Global civics recognizes that the world is more interconnected than ever before; that we live in an era when ideas, behaviors, products, and news spread more quickly and broadly than at any other time in history; and that the challenges and opportunities that define our era don’t stop at one country’s borders.

CFR is working to put global literacy back into the spotlight by meeting students where they are with relevant, compelling case studies and innovative multimedia content.It also acknowledges that learners of all ages must be equipped with the tools necessary to steer through the churn of the daily news cycle and a social media landscape often littered with misinformation.

CFR Education’s teaching global civics has involved using the intense, international popularity of Korean pop music to help students understand concepts like soft power; serving up avocado toast as an example of how the global supply chain affects what’s for brunch; and going behind the firewall to highlight how computer viruses now operate as modern-day tools of foreign policy.

Explore global civics resources from the Council on Foreign Relations:

CFR’s two award-winning digital learning products, World101 and Model Diplomacy, provide an essential baseline for a global civics curriculum and encourage learners ages 14 and up to embrace a world that functions on the fundamental principles of democracy.

  • World101 is a growing library of free educational resources that makes complex international relations and foreign policy issues accessible to all learners using videos, interactive maps, infographics, quizzes, and online teaching materials.
  • Model Diplomacy is a free classroom simulation program that invites students to step into the shoes of decision makers on the National Security Council or United Nations Security Council to debate the world’s most pressing issues.

CFR also recently released its first-ever music video—a guaranteed bop!

Black History Month: Lesson Plans and Resources for the Classroom

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

Black history is American history, and February is an opportunity to introduce classroom discussions and reflections about how Black Americans have shaped our nation. In celebration of Black History Month, we are sharing resources from iCivics, as well as partner organizations to support learning and conversations in the classroom.

Five iCivics Resources to Use This Month

The Road to Civil Rights Lesson Plan

Discover the people, groups, and events behind the Civil Rights Movement. Learn about means of non-violent protest, opposition to the movement, and identify how it took all three branches of the federal government to effect change. Protest posters, fictional diary entries, and a map of the movement’s major events develop a greater understanding of the struggle for civil rights.

Brown v. Board of Education Mini-Lesson

This mini-lesson covers the basics of the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned “separate but equal” in public schools. Students learn about segregation and “equality under the law.” 

Little Rock: Executive Order 10730 DBQuest

When President Eisenhower authorized troops under federal authority to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957, he became the first president since Reconstruction to use federal forces to help enforce equal rights for African Americans. Using the example of Executive Order 10730, students will explore how executive orders can be used to enforce the law. The story of integrating Little Rock Central High School doesn’t start or stop with Eisenhower’s executive order. Dive into the downloadable teaching resources to share more of the history with your students through the use of primary source documents. 

VIDEO: Ethel Payne: First Lady of the Black Press

More inclusive coverage of national and world events is due, in part, to Ethel Payne, the second Black woman to become a member of the White House Press Corps. In her position, she asked leaders tough questions and wrote hard-hitting news stories. Her persistence brought civil rights issues to a national audience and put Black people’s experiences on the front page.

Resources Page

Find all of our animated videos, lessons, and DBQuests for teaching Black history all month (and all year) long conveniently located together on a resources page.

Go to the Page

Resources From Our Partners

Black history is more than teaching about the civic strategy and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement. As we work to expand our resources to better integrate the contributions as well as social, political, and historical contexts of Black Americans in civics, we invite you to check out these collections from a few of our partners:

The First 100 Days and Beyond: Lesson Plans and Classroom Resources for Teaching the Executive Branch

Posted on by Luke O'Connor

January 20th, Inauguration Day, marks the official start of the four-year term of the President of the United States, but the real work begins after the ceremony ends. The first 100 days of the presidency is a critical period for setting the stage for what is to come in the next four years. Explore the many resources we offer to help students understand what they should expect during this period and the steps the executive branch can take to turn campaign promises into a reality.

All Eyes on the First 100 Days

Just like with any job, there are a lot of expectations when a new presidential term begins. Use our lesson, The First 100 Days, to explore the history of this concept, its impact on the presidency, and how success is judged. A customizable Google Slides deck is available for this lesson.

From Campaign Promises to an Agenda

This mini-lesson explains what a presidential agenda is and how it’s executed and communicated to the American people. Students will also examine the relationship between the president and Congress as it relates to the presidential agenda.

Mini-Lesson: Vice President

The president may be front and center, but the vice president plays an important part in our nation’s government. This new lesson will help students better understand the history of this office and the modern role of the vice president. 

What’s It Like to Be President?

In Executive Command, students get to be the president and learn firsthand the many different responsibilities that come with the job. From proposing a legislative agenda and signing bills to commanding the military, this interactive game takes students deep into the Oval Office.

Answer Students’ Questions About the Election, Presidency, Cabinet, and More!

Our Election Headquarters is the place to find our curated collection of lessons, games, and activities all about the electoral process and the executive branch.

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