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How to Ask for Professional Learning (Plus a Ready-to-Use Template!)

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

We all know the feeling: that spark of inspiration from a new teaching strategy, the desire to deepen our understanding of a subject, or the need to implement a new curriculum effectively. Professional learning opportunities and collaboration with fellow educators, like the Collaborative Learning Pathway offered by iCivics, can be the fuel that keeps our passion for education burning bright and directly impacts the learning experiences we provide for our students.

But often, the cost of high-quality professional learning can feel like a personal hurdle. While funding from your district or school for the entire staff may be limited. That is why advocating for your own professional learning and development can be a game-changer for your growth and, ultimately, your students’ success.

But what does it look like to advocate for yourself, and how should you get started?

Before you submit your request, take a moment to reflect on why your district should invest in this specific professional learning opportunity for you. Consider these points:

  • Improved student outcomes: How will this learning directly translate to a better learning experience and improved outcomes for your students? Be specific! Will it help you implement more engaging strategies? Address learning gaps? Enhance critical thinking skills?
  • Alignment with district initiatives: Does the professional learning opportunity align with current district-wide goals or initiatives? For example, if your district is focusing on inquiry-based learning, highlighting an offering on that topic strengthens your case.
  • Enhanced teaching practice: How will this learning enhance your instructional skills, classroom management, or assessment strategies?
  • Leadership potential and collaboration: Will this learning equip you to be a better resource for your colleagues or take on leadership roles within the school?
  • Staying current and innovative: Education is constantly evolving. Professional learning ensures you stay up-to-date on best practices and innovative approaches.

Your Advocacy Toolkit

  1. Do your research: Identify specific professional learning opportunities that align with your needs and school goals. Be prepared to provide details about the content, duration, cost, and potential impact.
  2. Connect to the curriculum: Clearly articulate how the professional learning will enhance your ability to deliver the curriculum effectively and meet learning standards.
  3. Highlight the benefits for students: Always bring it back to the students. Explain how your enhanced skills and knowledge will directly benefit their learning journey.
  4. Be specific and concise: Clearly state the professional learning opportunity you’re interested in and why you believe it’s a valuable investment.
  5. Offer to share: Suggest sharing your learnings with colleagues through a write-up for the school or district newsletter or blog, a presentation, or informal discussions, demonstrating a return on the district’s investment beyond your own classroom.
  6. Be professional and respectful: Approach your administration with a well-thought-out and respectful request.
  7. Follow school and district procedures: Understand the proper channels for submitting professional development requests.

Ready-to-Use Letter Template

To help you get started, we’ve created a customizable letter template you can adapt and send to your administrator. This template provides a solid framework for articulating your request effectively. We recommend updating the letter and benefits to fit the needs of your classroom and district.

Get the Letter Template

How to Integrate iCivics into the End-of-Year

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

As a high school teacher, the end of the school year is a pivotal time—especially for the seniors in my classroom. Between AP exams, final projects, and wrapping up the last quarter, it’s easy for both students and teachers to feel overwhelmed.

Adding to the pressure, assessments today go beyond rote memorization. Increasingly, end-of-year tests focus on higher-order thinking, requiring students to analyze, argue, and write in more sophisticated ways. On top of that, we educators want to ensure students leave our classrooms equipped with the skills they’ll need in college or next year’s courses.

It’s a lot to juggle. But iCivics offers a simple, effective solution—one that supports students’ learning while easing some of the pressure on teachers.

Gamify Review Sessions

While end-of-year study time is important, it can quickly become monotonous. One of my favorite ways to energize review days is by incorporating iCivics games. In my classroom, I often use Argument Wars, Branches of Power, and Constitutional Compromise to help students revisit key content like court cases, foundational principles, and the structure of government.

These games keep students actively engaged—and they’re more than just fun. Each one provides teachers with real-time data on student comprehension. That data can guide review sessions, helping us target the concepts students need to strengthen before final assessments.

Data-Informed Re-Teaching

Sometimes, the data from review sessions reveals topics that need to be revisited. That’s where the iCivics resource library becomes invaluable. With just a few clicks, you can find full lessons, videos, and activities covering everything from the Constitution to westward expansion to the civil rights movement.

My students especially love the civil rights unit. The engaging videos and interactive lessons help bring the material to life—and they’re a lifesaver when I need to quickly pull together a targeted review lesson based on student performance from the previous day.

Ending the Year with Meaning

The final days of the school year should be more than just a countdown—they should be a chance to reflect, reconnect, and celebrate all that students have accomplished. With iCivics, educators can spend less time scrambling to prepare and more time creating meaningful moments with their students.

Whether you’re reviewing content, identifying areas for reteaching, or planning engaging activities, iCivics provides high-quality resources that meet the moment. At a time when we’re all feeling the pressure, it’s a partner that helps us—and our students—finish strong.

Written by Jessica Mahoney

Jessica Mahoney is a third-year social studies educator who teaches Virginia and U.S. History at Norview High School in Norfolk, Virginia. She is a member of the iCivics Educator Network, the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Teacher Advisory Council, and a teacher ambassador for Retro Report. Jessica also serves as an at-large board member of the Maryland Civic Education Coalition, the Legislative and Advocacy Liaison for the Virginia Council for the Social Studies, and an educator consultant for the Center for Civic Education. She is passionate about engaging students in history and civic life through hands-on, inquiry-based learning and advocates for elevating teachers’ and students’ voices in education policy at both the local and national levels.

Through the iCivics Educator Network, the perspectives of teachers across the country contribute to the public conversation about civic education in the United States. Each contributor represents their own opinion. We welcome this diversity of perspectives.

To Our Incredible Teachers: We Appreciate You

Posted on by Sian Park

I have a confession to make: I didn’t want to write this post. What can I possibly say to express the magnitude of my appreciation for you without acknowledging the current moment and thereby wading into the political—something I’m neither supposed to do, nor want to?

But that’s been true for everything I’ve written or recorded for you this year. Every single message has been so hard to compose. I’ve obsessed over every word.

This is not my norm. I rarely struggle to find my words, especially when talking to teachers. You are my people, and I’ve always found it easy and natural to communicate with you. This year is different, not because of you, but because of the extraordinary circumstances in which you find yourself trying to teach for the maintenance of our constitutional democracy.

But here we go…

I appreciate you. All of iCivics appreciates you: our staff, our board (including Justice Sotomayor!), and our donors appreciate you.

And even though she is no longer with us, and I wouldn’t dare to put words in her mouth, I’m certain Justice O’Connor is smiling down upon you with awe and appreciation. We are all so grateful.

As the Chief Education Officer at a nonprofit organization, I necessarily wear a lot of hats. I know you get it. You do too.

You’re not just history or civics teachers. You’re counselors, coaches, club advisors, hallway monitors, test proctors, lunchroom attendants, and sometimes traffic directors. Every day when I drop my daughter off at school, I’m filled with both gratitude and cognitive dissonance when I see teachers with graduate degrees wearing professional clothing while blowing whistles and managing car lines in the south Georgia humidity.

That is insane. No other profession asks so much in the form of “other duties as assigned.”

My job description encapsulates many different things—important things, like academic integrity, impact research, youth engagement, and more. But my number one priority right now is supporting you in any way I can—not because you need my help, but because you need a friggin’ break.

So this is both a letter of appreciation and an invitation to HIT.ME.UP. Not to go to the club, although drinks are on me if we find ourselves in the same city. No, hit me up for what you need. How can I help? How can the team at iCivics make your job easier?

Because appreciation without action is like a terrible hug: hollow, unsatisfying, and oftentimes awkward.

We’re not here for that. We’re here for genuine, authentic appreciation—the kind that feels like a hug from your best friend after months or years apart.

Here’s what we’re doing at iCivics to put our appreciation into action:

  • We are LISTENING. As much as I want to delete all of my accounts, I continue to stay engaged on as many social media sites as possible to understand your daily struggles. The same is true for our marketing, product, and professional Learning teams. We’re also on a listening tour, scheduling 1:1 virtual meetings with educators.
  • We are CREATING. Every day, the award-winning product team at iCivics is researching, writing, revising, and uploading so that you have access to accurate, objective, engaging, and impactful resources.
  • We are ADVOCATING. Our Policy team is tracking bills, calling legislators, convening state-based commissions, and doing everything else in its power to ensure that states propose and pass bills that support civic education and civic educators.
  • We are PLANNING. We have our eyes on Constitution Day in September, NCSS in December, Civic Learning Week in March, and America250 from June 2025 to July 2026. We’re hard at work to make these special occasions and opportunities as meaningful as possible.

With that, I send you my biggest virtual hug—one that feels like a hug from veteran educator and iCivics Educator Network member Shannon Salter from Pennsylvania. Shannon gives the best hugs. They are whole-body, perfectly forceful, and just long enough for you to feel her affection without bystanders starting to wonder if something else is going on or if they should intervene. That’s the kind of hug I’m sending you.

With all of my gratitude,
Emma

P.S. We want to hear from you! Really, how can we help?
Here are some ideas that come to mind, but we are all ears for your specific suggestions:

Written by Emma Humphries

Dr. Emma Humphries, iCivics’ Chief Education Officer, brings extensive classroom experience teaching government, history, and economics, where she discovered the impact of engaging learning tools. With a deep commitment to empowering educators, she continues to champion innovative civic education resources and strategies.

Engaging Multilingual Students with the Help of iCivics

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

Seniors in my Government & Citizenship class engage with the class material in a variety of ways. Some days, they’re deeply analyzing political cartoons, revising bills based on party pressure and Congressional testimony, or organizing evidence to argue for and against impeachment during historic presidential scandals. Other days, they play games! For multilingual students, some of these activities can be especially challenging given the cultural components of understanding symbols in a political cartoon, for example. When there’s the opportunity for English language learners to deepen their learning without the roadblock of Google Translate, it makes such a big difference!

Recently, my students began the week by examining President Nixon’s resignation letter; it’s a single sentence, so every detail matters. I started to see the power that the brief document afforded multilingual students, since they could more easily access the material. Instead of spending a chunk of class time working to translate, they spent class time really addressing the purpose of the activity: WHY those words were there, rather than what the words were. While some of our classes are co-taught with an EL/ML instructor, we all know that there are never enough resources to go around, and unfortunately, our English Language Learners don’t have access to modified assignments that might better support them. If only there were more hours in the day to create these for my seniors!

The success of the Nixon primary source activity challenged me to search for additional ways to honor my English language learners. Thank goodness for iCivics! The iCivics site includes a “Pedagogy Tags” search option, including filters for EL/ML and Spanish lesson plans, games, infographics, and slideshows. The Convene the Council game and associated resources, created alongside the Council on Foreign Relations, enabled students to learn and demonstrate understanding in Spanish without the intermediary of a clunky translation tool. When I pointed out the “Jugar en Español” option, I saw the transformation in two of my Spanish-speaking students in one hour. Their body language changed, scooting their chairs towards their Chromebooks and bending over the screen to select the Spanish option. They built avatars that looked like them, and convened their National Security Council as iCivics shared fictional global crises to which they could respond and delegate.

I know that these students would have been successful if the game had only been offered in English, but the Spanish option increased their enthusiasm and participation level. In fact, one student finished so much more quickly than usual that he thought he’d done it wrong! As he saw students around him still playing, he assumed that he must have missed something; he was used to being one of the last students to complete an assignment, not because of a lack of understanding but because of translation challenges. When I explained that he’d done a great job and played the game just right, the pride in his face reinforced how powerfully he connected to the activity. The next day (I promise I’m not making this up!), at the end of class, he came up to me to say thank you, giving me a piece of his favorite Colombian candy. It was a powerful moment: getting to access a class activity in an authentic way was so important to this student that he was still thinking about it the next day and felt compelled to show his gratitude.

Convene the Council is just one of hundreds of iCivics options that support multilingual students. I plan to use the “6 Roles of the President” Infographic next, as we deepen understanding of presidential responsibilities beyond our initial foreign policy focus. I hope these resources will help my Spanish-speaking students feel like accessing activities in their native language is part of our class culture rather than something that necessitates a show of gratitude. And it was some great candy!

Written by Megan Thompson

Megan Thompson is in her 20th year teaching social studies. She has worked with iCivics Educator Network, National Constitution Center’s Teacher Advisory Board, and Eastern State Penitentiary’s Justice Education Collaboratory. With the support of a James Madison Fellowship, she earned a master’s in political science and co-created her school’s dual enrollment program. She teaches Crime & Justice, Government, Dual Enrollment Government, and Dual Enrollment World History just outside of Minneapolis, and she leads professional development on the Supreme Court, Foundations of the American Revolution, media literacy resources, and mindfulness in the classroom. Megan’s passion is in developing rigorous and relevant classroom materials that connect the past and the present, and supporting teachers in their implementation.

Through the iCivics Educator Network, the perspectives of teachers across the country contribute to the public conversation about civic education in the United States. Each contributor represents their own opinion. We welcome this diversity of perspectives.

Don Jenkins

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

Since August 2024, Don Jenkins has traveled around Norway as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American studies. In this capacity, he spends about three days at a given school teaching lower secondary students (ages 14–16) about U.S. history, government, culture, and current events. By the end of the school year, he will have taught approximately 6,000 students.

Don uses iCivics as part of the curriculum he’s developed for some of his workshops on topics like the Bill of Rights, how laws are passed, and the Civil Rights Movement. As a teacher for 30 years, Don is familiar with iCivics:

It’s been successful in my classroom back in the United States, so I kind of thought that it would be a good way for kids to learn more about the presidency, the separation of powers, and the checks and balances—important governmental ideas in the United States. I think kids really remember what they learn from playing games these days, and I thought it would be kind of a fun way to highlight and have them go deeper into the points that we were discussing from the activities earlier in the workshop.

Don’s most popular workshop is “So You Want To Be President?” which focuses on the role of the president and the unique process of choosing a president in the United States, including discussions about the Electoral College and the two-party system involving Republicans and Democrats. He ends the course by giving students time to play Win the White House and Executive Command.

As the “foundation of any democratic country,” Don notes that civic education is not just about “learning the basics of how governments work and how bills are turned into laws, but it can teach all the subjects. You can teach how to read. You can teach how to write.”

Case in point, Don highlighted the benefits of using iCivics games for helping students practice their English skills. One of the goals of the Fulbright program is for the students to practice their English with a native speaker. Don likes that Win the White House can be played on different levels, so the vocabulary can align with the Norwegian students’ English language abilities:

They can kind of adapt it to whatever they think would be the best language level for them. A lot of kids are not entirely confident with using English, so I think it also helps them build some confidence, and it’s also good because they can work in groups and talk about what’s going on.

“We spend about half an hour on the games and talking about them. We had lunch after one of the classes, and many of the kids were still playing the game,” Don said, explaining one of the ways he gauges the game’s impact and how they engage his students.

“Whenever people ask, like, ‘Hey, I’m stuck. How can I get kids excited about government?’ I’m always like, ‘Use iCivics! That’s a good way to get them hooked.’”

About Don

Teaching experience: 30+ years — Middle and high school social studies

Select Awards: 2019 Civic Engagement Champion (National Association of State Boards of Education)

A Fluorescent Moment for Civics

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

As we carry the energy of Civic Learning Week (CLW) 2025 forward, I am reflecting on the momentum we witnessed across the country.  The key takeaway for me coming out of CLW is that the civic fabric of America, while frayed, remains durable. New research shows public support for civic education is sky-high. Large majorities believe that what unites us are the founding principles of our constitutional democracy and that the highest responsibility of citizenship is protecting each other’s liberties.

A heat map of local civic action from recent weeks, covering everything from classroom lessons about the Constitution to people attending town halls and Governors signing civic education legislation, would show bright fluorescent splashes across all 50 states. That is what CLW is all about, and it is worth celebrating. We have excellent opportunities to maintain this momentum on the horizon, including around Constitution Day in September.

We also know that polarization, plummeting faith in institutions, and technology-driven disconnection will continue to stress our civic fabric to a degree we haven’t seen in generations. Coupled with the intensity of disruption in politics and policy right now, these trends are creating a fluorescence of their own, in the sense that just keeping up is akin to staring into the sun.

In this environment, civic education is the most powerful, underutilized tool we have to ensure that our individual liberties and our voice as the ultimate democratic arbiter are protected and that our children are prepared to navigate an increasingly complex world.

The fast-approaching 250th anniversary of the birth of the American experiment provides a fleeting opportunity to return civic knowledge, pride, and action to the center of American life after so many years of atrophy with obvious consequences. To paraphrase Sharon McMahon, the popular author and civics podcast host who graced us with her presence at CLW, too many of us have been robbed of this rich knowledge for too long – and it is time to get it back.

We built momentum for this critical work at CLW. I want to offer my heartfelt appreciation to all the individuals and organizations that spoke up for civics across the country, with special thanks to our CLW National Forum co-hosts from the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions at the Hoover Institution and our CLW and forum sponsors Bezos Family Foundation; Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Daniels Fund; Democratic Knowledge Project; Microsoft; More Perfect; PBS LearningMedia; Stuart Foundation; and Travelers.

Here are five additional steps forward I believe we all must take together to bring civics back to the center in our nation:

The Founders unequivocally believed that civic education should be a sustaining pillar of constitutional democracy:

  • Thomas Jefferson and James Madison extolled civic learning as a way to safeguard individual freedoms.
  • And President George Washington, in his final Annual Address to Congress in 1796, said that the “education of our Youth in the science of Government” would prepare them to be “future guardians of the liberties of the Country.”

To them, civics and an ethos of service were at the heart of what education in America should be, but we have strayed very far from that vision in our schools and communities.

Key takeaway: Collectively, we need to lead with the Founders’ vision as we argue for returning high-quality civics to the center of how our children learn and prepare to be responsible citizens. We can tell this story and tell it often over the next 18 months.

More to explore:

  • Watch the Civic Learning Week closing plenary with Condoleezza Rice, Tad and Dianne Taube Director & Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Hoover Institution, and Spencer Cox, Governor, State of Utah.

Condoleezza Rice and Utah Governor Spencer Cox converse during the Civic Learning Week closing plenary.

It would be hard to overstate the importance of continuing to go local and back to basics on civics at this moment:

  • Local communities are where the most trusted institutions and leaders still reside.
  • Policy gridlock and our saturated media environment make it difficult to operate productively at the federal-national level.
  • Our federalist system, and many of the Trump Administration’s early policy moves, mean that states and locales will have even more power to set the direction of education and other issues in the future.

This means that public dialogue and policy change are coming in all 50 states, focusing on what the goals of education should be (hint: look back to the Founders!) and how to manage and fund it moving forward.

Key takeaway: Funders and partners can immediately get behind an array of local efforts to build civics coalitions, advance good policy based on local context, and help bridge the gap between the civics classroom and local communities, where civics can be experienced first-hand in a way that solidifies student learning and nurtures longer-term civic engagement. The work of the CivxNow coalition and growing momentum behind state Civic Seals programs and the National Civics Bee are examples of new energy in this area.

More to explore:

Gen. Jim Mattis speaks with Hahrie Han and Sharon McMahon during the Pluralistic Civic Learning in Practice panel at Civic Learning Week.

We are long past due to evolve our thinking about how civic learning happens in the following ways:

  • Start in kindergarten and never stop providing civic learning experiences (rather than focusing mainly on grades 6-12).
  • Build new approaches to imparting civic knowledge that are fit for the way young people – really all of us – learn and live today, including engagement in all types of school, out of school, and informal learning environments.
  • Expand our argument for civics to include the importance of core skill building (communication, critical thinking, and collaboration) for the economy of the AI age.
  • Evolve our thinking about measuring attainment.

Of course, to do any of this effectively, we also have to become comfortable with some uncomfortable things: embracing responsible AI use, walking the walk on pluralism and celebrating a huge range of local approaches, and inviting students and parents into the heart of the conversation about where we go from here.

Key takeaway: We have a moment of opportunity to strengthen nascent collaboration among stakeholders across the learning cycle (K-Grey) and learning environments, and between the public and private sectors. Engaging the business sector, including technology organizations, will be critical here and across all that I propose in this document.

More to explore:

A panel of four youth and young adults discuss civic education with moderator Rajiv Vinnakota, President of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

In many recent conversations, I have sensed latent skepticism about whether schools are worthy of focus any longer in terms of delivering quality civic education. I cannot argue strongly enough for us to resist this temptation, for a few key reasons among many:

  • For 250 years, there have been civics teachers in every community advancing the Founders’ vision of protecting individual liberties and preparing the future defenders of our democratic traditions. There are no other scaled, locally trusted channels like this for reaching young people and their parents and communities.
  • The further shift of power over curriculum and instruction to the states, coupled with decreased federal funding streams, mean that civic educators will have to navigate a Wild West environment to access professional development opportunities and deliver high-quality civic learning.

These shifts provide openings at the state and local level to build support for educators and for returning civics to the center. At CLW, we unveiled a new annual prize honoring an exemplary civics teacher from our network in the name of iCivics’ founder, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, which we hope will be part of a larger surge of support to civic educators.

Key takeaway: Our transformative aspirations for civic education will fall apart if we overlook teachers and their frontline role as defenders of both our democracy and our children. We need to support teachers and encourage them to be engaging America’s young people on both our democratic traditions *and* contemporary public issues in the classroom. Strong civics instruction that effectively brings these two things together, and makes space for students to engage with a variety of viewpoints, propels the development of core democratic knowledge, civic pride, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills – all so important in the challenging contemporary environment and economy.

More to explore:

  • Read about our Chief Policy and Advocacy Officer’s full circle moment during Civic Learning Week.
  • Check out the CivxNow State Policy Menu, your one-stop shop for crafting strong civic education policies for K–12 schools.
  • Learn about Teachers Advancing Civic Learning (TACL), a grassroots network of educators trained and empowered to advance and strengthen civic learning through policy at the local, state, and national levels.

Even a milestone commemoration of the birth of the American experiment isn’t immune from national cultural conflict right now. But below the national level, evidence shows a huge yearning among Americans to reach out across differences, build more connections, and solve problems together – in other words, to act according to pluralism. And so we must:

  • Tell a better story about democracy by telling better stories about America, to paraphrase Republican strategist Sarah Longwell. America250 provides a generational opportunity to do that.
  • As a means of rebuilding broader trust in institutions and democracy, raise up and celebrate local (more trusted) institutions and local (more trusted) civic educators and leaders who protect our liberties and deliver results in communities.

Stitched together, these many actions will represent a nationwide civic reawakening at a pivotal moment in our history. The huge scope and variety of these efforts will be pluralism in action.

Key takeaway: The greater opportunity here is to give all Americans something they can feel prideful about throughout their lives. Today’s young people likely won’t remember the division and distortion of this moment, but they may remember the cool things they helped make happen in their community for America250.

More to explore:

Rosie Rios, Chair, America250, speaks at the Civic Learning Week National Forum.

I hope the civics community can coalesce and do our best work to take advantage of the generational moment that is upon us. As Civic Learning Week exemplified, we are best suited to tell the vividly colorful (fluorescent) stories about America and our constitutional democracy that can bring people together at the community level. There is no more important calling on the road ahead, and as always, I’m reminded of a quote from iCivics’ founder, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: “We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.” My only edit would be to have this quote apply to all people, and my call to action is civics for all, one community at a time.

Civic Learning Week photos courtesy of Patrick Beaudouin | Hoover Institution

Using DBQuests for Test Preparation

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

Teachers are teaching more than facts in high school history and government classes. If you ask them, most will agree the content is a platform for teaching life skills; cultural awareness, civic engagement, and communication come to mind. Above all, teachers want their students to leave their social science classes with strong critical thinking skills, the ability to analyze events, evaluate sources for reliability (and determine the validity of that source based on its biases), and understand multiple perspectives.

As the focus of our instruction has changed, so has the way we assess the learning of these skills. Teachers are moving away from straight multiple-choice tests (although there is something to be said about the ease of grading A, B, C or D) and focusing on students’ analytical skills demonstrated through essay or free-response prompts. Similar to the long division of old, teachers are looking for students to show what and how they are thinking and, while a “right” answer is appreciated, so is the process by which students arrive at that answer.

We all know practice makes “better” (nothing is perfect). Teachers can not hand students an essay question or send them off to take their AP test without practice answering these types of questions. It would be setting students up for failure. Speaking from experience, though, creating quality practice questions is time consuming, more so if you are not an expert in the topic. How can you find quality sources if your own understanding is rudimentary at best?

This is where iCivics DBQuests come in. DBQuests are a learning tool that uses document-based questions to guide students in primary source analysis. I have used the same ready-to-go DBQuests with middle and high school (Dual Enrollment no less), picking and choosing which supports from the teacher resources were needed for my English Language Learners and Gifted and Talented students as needed with great success thanks to the built-in support. DBQuests guide students through analyzing a primary or secondary source to identify its perspective and usefulness, identify the source type, and analyze it to answer a central question. The Teacher’s Guide includes supports like student printables and glossaries, perfect for your EL/ML students needing that reinforcement.

Students who are being introduced to DBQuests and essay writing will benefit from the guided mode. Guided mode prompts students to identify different parts of the source while thinking critically using that overarching question. More experienced students can be assigned the same activity without the support in freeform mode. This is more similar to what your AP students could expect to see in the FRQs. The true beauty? You can assign the different levels to students based on their individual needs simultaneously without anyone being aware of what level of support they are receiving using iCivics’ LMS. Set up different classes for students (all they would need is your class code) or assign Lesson A and Lesson B in the same class, specifying who does which version. It is up to the teacher.

As teachers, we understand how important it is to meet students where they are, rather than where we want them to be. By using these scaffolds I was able to meet the needs of all of my students (and no one knew they were doing different lessons), which encouraged each of them to stretch their skills. By the end of the year, I have seen significant growth in the reasoning and evaluative skills of all my students.

No prep. Personalized scaffolds. DBQ practice. What reason do you have NOT to use them?

Written by Anne Walker

Anne Walker brings a wide perspective to iCivics, having taught Kindergarten through Dual Enrollment American History and Government over her 20+ years in education. A proud Madison Fellow, she holds master’s degrees in both Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, as well as American History and Government. A member of iCivics’ Steering Committee, she is also proud to have a seat on the National Constitution Center Teacher Advisory Council and RetroReport Teacher Ambassadors. She currently serves on the National Council of Social Studies Board of Directors.

Through the iCivics Educator Network, the perspectives of teachers across the country contribute to the public conversation about civic education in the United States. Each contributor represents their own opinion. We welcome this diversity of perspectives.

Unlocking the Constitution for Multilingual Learners: The Power of Video

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

As we celebrate National Bilingual/Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month this April, it’s the perfect time to explore effective strategies for supporting these students, and our Constitution EXPLAINED, or Todo sobre la constitución (in Spanish), video series offers a powerful example of how to do just that.

Videos are a great resource for teaching English and multilingual learners (ELs/MLs) because they provide:

  • Multimodal Input: Videos don’t just present text; they combine audio and visual cues. This is crucial for ELs/MLs, who benefit from seeing concepts illustrated. For example, when explaining the “separation of powers,” visuals show the three branches of government in action. This helps ELs/MLs connect complex legal terms with concrete images, enhancing comprehension and retention. This is especially helpful with the complex vocabulary of social studies. Visuals can help explain the meaning of words like “legislative,” “ratification,” and “compromise.”
Screenshot from The People's Branch episode of the Constitution EXPLAINED visually explaining the terms "political deals," "compromise," and "disagreements."
The People's Branch episode uses visuals to explain the meaning of "political deals," "compromise," and "disagreements."
A screenshot from the El poder del pueblo episode of Todo sobre la constitución that visually explains the terms "negociaciones políticas," "acuerdos," and "desacuerdos."
The Spanish version of the episode, El poder del pueblo, uses the same visuals to explain the meaning of the same terms in Spanish.
  • Authentic Language and Context: These videos use a conversational approach and were designed with students in mind. ELs/MLs see and hear about constitutional concepts in everyday language in a way that builds upon their background knowledge, exposing them to new concepts along with familiar language, thus providing valuable and relatable context.
  • Engaging and Motivating Learning: The short, digestible format of the Constitution EXPLAINED videos keeps MLs engaged. The clear, concise explanations, coupled with visuals, make learning about the Constitution less intimidating and more enjoyable. The call to action questions at the end of each video encourage the students to want to learn more.
  • Listening Comprehension and Language Support:
    • Videos provide valuable listening practice, helping MLs develop their ability to understand spoken English within an academic context.
    • Crucially, the availability of both English and Spanish versions, along with bilingual Teacher Guides, provides essential support. Spanish-speaking MLs can listen in their native language and then reinforce their understanding in English.
    • Subtitles/closed captioning or transcripts can be used to support comprehension, allowing learners to connect spoken and written language.
  • Flexibility and Accessibility: The short video format (2-3 minutes in length) allows for flexible learning. Teachers can assign videos as needed, and MLs can review them at their own pace. This is particularly beneficial for students who need extra time to process information. They can watch the videos multiple times.
  • Extending Learning with Teacher Guides: Our bilingual (English/Spanish) guides are designed for maximum versatility, supporting diverse classroom needs and maximizing and extending learning. The English component benefits all multilingual learners, regardless of their native language, while the Spanish component specifically caters to dual-language programs and Spanish-speaking MLs, ensuring targeted support. The guides include:
    • Content-specific vocabulary: Taken directly from the video scripts, these terms are presented in context, aiding comprehension.
    • Guiding questions: These questions activate prior knowledge and encourage critical thinking, both before and after viewing.
    • Video Viewing Strategies and Instruction Strategies: These provide teachers with tools to support MLs, such as: “Turn and Talk” activities for collaborative learning; Identifying cognates in Spanish and English to build connections; Sentence frames to guide writing and discussion, and more.
Screenshot of the Video Viewing Strategies and Instructional Strategies sections of a lesson plan.

In conclusion, the Constitution EXPLAINED video series harnesses the power of video to make learning about the Constitution accessible and engaging for all students, particularly English and multilingual learners. The combination of multimodal input, language support, and flexible resources creates a rich learning experience that promotes both language acquisition and civic understanding.

Written by Kristen Chapron

Kristen Chapron is Senior Editor of Digital Learning and ELL at iCivics. She worked on the Todo sobre la constitución series and looks forward to creating even more materials for English and multilingual learners.

Emma is Proud of You

Posted on by Sophie Gordon

Man, it’s not easy to be a civics teacher right now. No matter where you teach, things may feel a bit tricky. For some of you, it may feel like a minefield. You may think, “I’m not sure how to do my job.”

We recognize that. We get it.

Here’s what I want to say: Yes, you do. You know how to do your job. Moreover, the parents of America want you to do your job. The public overwhelmingly agrees that our country needs K-12 civic education. It’s more than popular. It’s more than bipartisan. Americans from all political stripes think civic education will have a positive impact on strengthening our national common identity. I have receipts. See here and here.

There are lots of ways to be a patriot. For us civics teachers of America, it is by doing our jobs—teaching the knowledge, skills, and dispositions our students deserve and our constitutional democracy requires.

With full appreciation for just how busy you are, I’d like to suggest that this moment calls for even more from us. It calls for us to take our mission to our students’ parents.

When we’re scared or uncertain, it’s only natural to seek shelter and weather the storm. As someone who is extraordinarily afraid of lightning (I grew up in South Florida—the trauma is real), I don’t take this metaphor lightly. But now is not the time to hunker down and hope the tempest soon retreats. We need to put on our <insert your preferred regional term for rainboots> and take our case to parents and even the broader community.

Here are some ideas on how to structure your outreach:

    • Start with the Personal. Share what drew you to the teaching of history and civics. For me, it was a passion for our founding ideals and an enthusiasm for the complexity of our system of government (I’m looking at you, federalism and the Electoral College). I’m always telling folks, “Listen, social studies teachers don’t go into this line of work because we hate America. On the contrary, we love our country, our history, our founding documents, and our system of government, and nothing gives us greater joy than sharing this passion with our students.”
    • Move to the Philosophical: No, I’m not talking Socrates or Kant, but if that’s your jam, you do you. I’m talking about your teaching philosophy. Briefly, here’s mine, which you are welcome to borrow from: I’m not here to tell students what to think. I’m here to help them learn how to think. My job is to bring enthusiasm and knowledge and just enough self-deprecating nerdiness to protect myself from students’ relentless if not clever (and sometimes hilarious) jabs at my civics teacher identity. When students leave my classroom, they will know more, care more, and feel more confident in their ability to think critically about and contribute to their communities. As for this talk of indoctrination, I don’t mean to be trite, but we can hardly get our students to write their names on their assignments. It’s quite a stretch to think we can get them to fundamentally shift their worldview.
    • Highlight the Practical: High-quality civic education has a lot of known benefits, including but not limited to literacy gains, college and career readiness, enhancement of durable skills, and thriving communities. Also…ALSO, it’s a requisite for healthy democratic governance. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in an 1818 letter to William Jarvis, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.” Research shows that education does precisely what Jefferson suggests. Students who receive a high-quality civic education are more likely to vote and discuss current issues and events at home, be confident in speaking publicly and communicating with elected officials, and volunteer and work on community issues.
    • Celebrate the Promise: Thomas Jefferson wasn’t the only President who expressed strong support for civic education as a sustaining pillar of liberty in a constitutional democracy. James Madison posited that civic education and engagement were bulwarks against “crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.” And George Washington, in his Eighth Annual Address to Congress in 1796, said, “a primary object of such a National Institution should be, the education of our Youth in the science of Government. In a Republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty, more pressing on its Legislature, than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those, who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the Country?” As a parent myself, I can think of no greater honor than for my children to be grow up to be guardians of liberty in our country.

Lastly, INVITE.THEM.IN. Forgive the all-caps, but I feel strongly about this one. It doesn’t have to be a literal invitation to visit your classroom, although it can be. Rather, it could be as simple as inviting them into your scope and sequence or a particular unit or lesson plan. You’re teaching your state-mandated standards. You have nothing to hide! So make that visible. Visibility promotes transparency, and transparency promotes trust.

Just know that I trust you. I always have.

And if you need a little help to get started on that parental outreach, I’ve got you covered. Here’s a letter template for parents/guardians you can customize for your voice and local context.

We’re also happy to provide a separate letter template for parents/guardians that introduces iCivics and our approach and academic values that you customize and use.

Written by Emma Humphries

Dr. Emma Humphries, iCivics’ Chief Education Officer, brings extensive classroom experience teaching government, history, and economics, where she discovered the impact of engaging learning tools. With a deep commitment to empowering educators, she continues to champion innovative civic education resources and strategies.

Civics as Invitation

Posted on by icivics

There’s a moment, just before a student raises their hand, when you see the wheels turning. A flicker of hesitation, the weighing of whether their thought is worth sharing. And then—if the classroom is the right kind of space—confidence wins, and the question, the insight, the challenge spills into the air. I saw that moment over and over again this week in classrooms where teachers were using iCivics to guide discussions on democracy, governance, and civic responsibility.

It’s easy to talk about civic education in broad strokes. We know the statistics, the declining trust in institutions, the polarization. But in these classrooms, the conversation was immediate, alive. Students debated real-world court cases, mapped out the branches of government, stepped into the roles of legislators and advocates. And in the center—calm, nimble, engaged—were the teachers.

Teachers do more than instruct. They hold space for tough conversations, model engagement with disagreement, help students see the weight of their voices. In one classroom, a student hesitated before responding to a classmate’s argument. The teacher let the moment breathe. Eventually, she spoke—not just to counter but to build on the idea. That small thing was the foundation of civic engagement: listening, considering, responding with purpose.

How do you teach civic courage? How do you help young people feel the power of participation in a system that can seem too large, too distant, too broken? The teachers I observed weren’t delivering grand speeches or prescribing a single way to engage but creating conditions where students could discover for themselves. They nudged, they asked, they left silences open just long enough for students to step in.

There’s a kind of hope in this work. At a time when civics can feel like a battleground, these teachers are not retreating. They lean in, trusting that giving students tools to understand, question, and shape the world is worth what they might face. They teach not just the mechanics of government but the habits of participation, the confidence to speak and listen, the understanding that democracy is not a spectator sport.

I left thinking about the long arc of influence. How a single teacher can shift a student’s sense of agency. How a single moment—raising a hand, offering a counterpoint, taking apart an argument and building it back stronger—can begin a lifetime of engagement. These teachers shape not just the next generation of voters but community builders, advocates, and leaders.

Not every hand will go up. Not every student will leave fully convinced of their power. But the invitation is there, the door is open. And maybe that’s enough for now—to create the space where the next generation can step forward, take their place in the conversation, and decide what comes next.