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It was the most organized of times, and still the most chaotic of times. The age of shiny new platforms and user IDs, and also the age of forgotten passwords.  A season of high expectations, cold coffees, and way too many free trial emails.  Every standard is mapped out, and there is zero wiggle room on the calendar between mastery checks, tests, and school events. You are defaulting into survival mode. In short, the period is just like every back-to-school season. Until you use ASK iCivics to co-plan.

Imagine the time saved if you could surface the iCivics resources that you need directly to your fingertips in seconds.

Teachers, rejoice! Meet ASK iCivics: a secure, AI-powered co-planning tool built to streamline your research and help you identify top-tier resources that meet your needs.

What is ASK iCivics? Effortless Resource Discovery

Think of ASK iCivics as your personal curriculum curator. Instead of clicking through endless search results, hunting down forgotten “hidden gems,” or going down late-night rabbit holes on the open web, ASK iCivics brings the best and most relevant parts of our extensive resource library directly to the surface.

Simply tell the tool what you’re teaching—whether it’s a single-day inquiry into executive power or a multi-day unit on the Judicial Branch—and it will  guide you to resources recommendations. It identifies, sorts, and makes connections, but you decide what you need and how to use it. Instead of manually searching our library or reading through scopes and sequences, ASK iCivics brings the right materials directly to you.  ASK iCivics gathers your requested materials.  It can even help organize lessons into a structured sequence based on the time that you have, taking the heavy lifting out of lesson prep. It works with you and for you.

What About State Standards?

We know that even the day-to-day workflow can easily consume a planning period. That’s why ASK iCivics features integrated, state-specific standards alignment to smooth out the back-to-school paperwork burden. You can instantly confirm that your chosen materials meet your state benchmarks without doing extra digging just to submit lesson plans. 

“But Can I Trust It?”

If you’re approaching new technology with a healthy dose of skepticism, you are in good company. We know that there are uncertainties and worries over AI’s impact on student learning. Asking whether a tool is safe isn’t just reasonable;, it’s essential.

Rest assured, ASK iCivics is curated, trusted, tested, and secure.

• No Open-Web Noise: ASK iCivics operates exclusively within iCivics’ award-winning, nonpartisan, and vetted library to generate its recommendations.
• Strictly Teacher-Facing: ASK iCivics is a secure co-planning tool closed entirely to student use. Access to the resources and answer keys are only accessible to teachers on the website.  
• Rigorously Vetted: The tool has been extensively tested to ensure it adheres to the highest standards of nonpartisan neutrality and pedagogical safety.

Most importantly, ASK iCivics is designed to assist your expertise, not replace it. It does not think for you or your students, nor can it ever replace your great teaching; it simply handles the heavy lifting of resource retrieval and analysis, leaving you free to do what you do best.

Ready to Reclaim Your Planning Time?

Teaching civics is more vital than ever, but your time is a finite resource. ASK iCivics was built to respect your professional wisdom, safeguard your classroom, and transform the back-to-school rush from a season of chaos into an age of effortless prep.

Log in this season, ask your first question, and discover just how seamless lesson planning can be. But first… refill that coffee.

I recently heard a constitutional scholar say, “The law isn’t settled.” That idea stuck with me. Laws change. Court decisions are overturned. Constitutional interpretation evolves over time. That’s one reason I love teaching Supreme Court cases. Students can watch the law develop in real time.

As part of the Civic Star Challenge, my students and I zoomed in on specific Supreme Court cases to understand how the rights outlined in the Constitution have been interpreted and applied over the last 250 years. 

When we started our unit on sex discrimination—looking at cases that considered the 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments—my students assumed we were going to focus on the rights of women. But the law helped them see the issue in a broader, more comprehensive way. 

We jumped in with Reed v. Reed; it was obvious to the students that women should have property rights. Then, I introduced them to Craig v. Boren, which challenged a law that set the drinking age for women at 18, and men at 21. This really resonated with them—which was, of course, the point! Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a lawyer for the ACLU, helped develop the strategy behind the plaintiff’s argument. She knew what teachers know, too: when you show people how a foreign concept can exist within their own experience, they understand it more deeply. From there, students easily made the leap to our discussions of Frontiero v. Richardson and Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, in which the Justices ruled that husbands were eligible for the same benefits as wives.

However, the application of the First Amendment proved much more complicated to the students. I watched them weigh the desire for unfiltered expression with the impacts of that speech, especially when it involves falsehoods, threats, and the provocation of violence. We covered a range of cases, including free speech classics such as Schenck v. United States and Brandenburg v. Ohio. But Snyder v. Phelps really gripped the class. The case considered whether the First Amendment protected members of the Westboro Baptist Church when they shouted slurs and picketed outside the funeral of a gay serviceman. The students were surprised to learn that the court did not split down ideological lines, ruling 8 to 1 in support of the protesters. (In his dissent Justice Alito wrote that “our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.”) 

Students also really wrestled with the idea that speech inciting violence is punishable but that if no violence occurs, the speech is allowable. They pointed to social media and wondered how difficult it was to determine if an influencer’s impact on a third party’s violent action could be traced. 

Recently, my students and I listened to oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara together. I was struck by how dense the discussion was—but also, how our work in class is helping them to decode it. We caught mentions of Dred Scot, the Slaughter-House cases, and even the Civil Rights Act of 1866! We were witnessing the Court wrestling with its history, as it was simultaneously bringing the Constitution into our present moment. 

As an English teacher, I approach civics through the lens of language. 

One of the most memorable moments I’ve experienced teaching rhetoric happened during a lesson on the Declaration of Independence. I’d taught the document before, but as part of the Civic Star Challenge, I decided to shift my approach. Instead of beginning with vocabulary, I started by asking my students a simple question: “How do you convince someone to let you go when they hold all the power?” Suddenly, the document stopped feeling like a distant historical text, but a living argument.

As we began reading, students focused on how Thomas Jefferson carefully structured his argument. We examined the introduction and discussed how the author established credibility by appealing to universal values such as equality and natural rights. Students noticed how the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident” was not just a statement, but a strategic move, an assertion meant to sound unquestionable. As one student reflected, “It sounds like he’s saying, ‘Everyone already knows this, so you can’t argue.’” That observation opened the door to a deeper discussion about persuasion and authority.

We moved on to the body of the document, analyzing the list of grievances as part of the argumentative structure. I asked students to look for patterns, and they quickly noticed the repetition of “He has…”. This opened a discussion of craft, particularly the use of repetition to build momentum and emotional impact. A student shared that it felt similar to how people argue when they are frustrated, listing everything at once so nothing can be ignored. That’s Jefferson using the rhetorical strategy of accumulation, layering evidence to overwhelm the reader and strengthen his claim. 

The most powerful moment came when we discussed the conclusion. I asked students why the colonists waited until the end to declare independence outright. One student quietly said, “Because if they said it at the beginning, no one would listen to the reasons.” That response captured the essence of argumentative structure better than any textbook definition. The student understood that persuasion requires timing, logic, and restraint. The declaration was not an emotional outburst; it was a carefully crafted argument designed to justify a radical decision.

By approaching the text in terms of its purpose, craft, and structure, my students realized that arguments follow patterns they already use in real life. They began comparing the Declaration to modern speeches, essays, and even social media posts. They recognized that rhetoric is timeless.

That day, my classroom felt like a workshop on critical thinking and persuasion. The Declaration became a mentor text that taught my students, and me, how powerful words can be when they are intentionally chosen and strategically arranged. This, in turn, allowed students to begin seeing themselves as authors of change. And for me, that is the heart of civics.

Sometimes it only takes 30 minutes to set the stage for an entire school year.

When I introduced the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to my 8th graders, they were overwhelmed. Some of them even looked like they wanted to give up before we really began. Honestly, I could understand why. Navigating proclamations written by colonial bureaucrats nearly 250 years ago would be intimidating for almost anyone. 

But these documents contain ideas and ideals that served as the foundation of our nation, so I wanted students to engage with them directly instead of just hearing about them from me. As part of the Civic Star Challenge, I created a scavenger hunt to help students explore the documents on their own.

After a brief primer on the primary sources, I gave the students a map, of sorts: a series of prompts that guided their search. Then they started digging. The first part of the hunt was a scramble, in which they had to organize the parts of the Constitution in order of appearance. Then they had to examine the documents for the answers to 20 questions, including:

• Which branch’s powers are defined in Article II?
• What are the qualifications for being president?
• What does the judicial power extend to?
• What is the 10th Amendment?
• What are the five freedoms guaranteed by the 1st Amendment?

Many of the students’ discoveries led to questions of their own. For example, they wanted to understand the differences between the 9th and 10th Amendments. And they were shocked to discover that the 1st is about more than free speech. As we talked about freedom of expression, they wanted to know how that right extended to a school setting. That, of course, brought us to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Many of these students are getting their first phones, while also being required to check them at the classroom door. So they had a lot of questions about the places where freedoms, laws, and social norms collide. I could see the connections they were making, like little light bulbs popping up over all of their heads!

When we embarked on this brief activity, it quickly became clear how little the students knew about how the government works. But focusing deeply on the sources, they were able to both learn and retain the information they encountered. And I’ve seen them apply it in almost every conversation that’s followed. They get so excited when they remember things! Of course, I do too! 

In honor of the 250th, I challenged myself to incorporate the Declaration into every unit I’m teaching. From the western expansion to the Industrial Revolution to the Civil War, we’re looking at the text to understand the historical moments that tested the ideals set forth within it. We’re also looking at the movements it helped inspire. One especially meaningful moment came during our study of the Seneca Falls Convention. Students noticed how carefully the authors of the Declaration of Sentiments echoed Jefferson’s language when they wrote that “all men and women are created equal.”

They immediately understood why those words mattered.

My middle school students understand that I have high expectations and that I’ll show up consistently and authentically—whether we’re working together in class or running into each other at church. And even though they yearn for independence, I know they also crave that relationship. It’s a priority for me too. Trust is key to ensuring my classroom is a place where they can feel safe honing their ideas and trying out new ones. That’s what civics—and the Civic Star Challenge—is all about, especially as we near the country’s 250th birthday.

This is a moment to consider the ways we’re living up to the ideals in the Declaration of Independence and our other founding documents. That’s what two great American writers were doing in 1852. It’s the year Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Frederick Douglass delivered his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” These were two people with starkly different backgrounds, but who shared a faith in their nation’s potential.

Drawing on a lesson from the Four Question Method, my 8th grade US history class analyzed key passages from each text.

Students were especially struck by what pushed Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. After losing her young son to cholera, she reflected on the grief enslaved mothers experienced when their children were taken from them.

We discussed Stowe’s admission that she had once avoided thinking deeply about slavery because it felt too painful to confront. By the end of the novel, she directly challenges readers to act against the Fugitive Slave Act, appealing to them as parents and Christians.

It’s as if she’s looking her readers directly in the eye.

That was what Douglass was doing as he delivered his landmark speech to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. He is blistering in his critique of the July 4th holiday, calling it “a sham,” its “shouts of liberty and equality” nothing but “hollow mockery.” But what surprised students most was how the speech ended.

“I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. No abuse, no outrage … can now hide itself from the all-pervading light.”

My students immediately recognized that Douglass was opening himself up to great personal risk by speaking out, and they marveled at his decision to use his public platform in this way. We also discussed how Douglass was able to criticize his country, while loving it ardently. This ability to consider two competing truths simultaneously—with rigor and respect—is one of the most valuable lessons civics can offer us.

Ultimately, my goal is to help my students notice that both Stowe and Douglas are profoundly hopeful. They refused to turn away from the darkness of their time and in facing it, helped push our country forward. To me, hope is a theme that is woven throughout our nation’s story. Even – or perhaps especially—when it is difficult to see, these great American voices remind us and future generations it’s worth declaring.

I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years, but this year is my first teaching 7th grade civics. So over the summer, I went on a hunt for resources that would engage those students. I love using immersive activities like mock trials, escape rooms, and simulations to help them connect theory with experience. When I discovered the game Race to Ratify, I knew I’d found something good. We played it recently, as part of the Civic Star Challenge.

The game takes place in 1787-1789, right after the Constitution is written, during the debate over whether the states should ratify it. Players travel across the 13 states, interviewing different people to gather arguments to create pamphlets that support either the Federalists or Anti-Federalists. They might encounter a farmer who’s worried about taxation and federal power, or an enslaved person who raises questions about whose rights the Constitution protects. As they gather these myriad perspectives, the game really drives home how difficult it was to rally support. 

After each conversation, the player gets an “argument token” they can use for their pamphlet. Then they must carefully evaluate which arguments will allow them to build their case and lead to a favorable vote. On more than one occasion, a student admitted “Mr. Knox, I’m starting to run out of evidence to support my side!” That led to some good conversations around strategy: Have you talked to the right people? How might you best use the evidence you have left to make your argument?

I was surprised to see several students enthusiastically lobbying against the Constitution—but maybe I shouldn’t have been! Seventh grade is often when students begin testing ideas more independently. They are asking: What do I think? What do I believe? What would I change if I could? These questions lead naturally to: How can things be different? As they tried out a counter-factual narrative of history, I knew they were starting to see how their own actions will impact the next chapter of our nation’s story. 

I find that so exciting. So much of what we focus on in the study of history is the timeline of events: here’s what happened, here’s what happened, here’s what happened. Race to Ratify reminds us that each of those things happened because a person or a group made a choice. Each decision we make has a domino effect, which is why it’s so important for us to carefully consider the impact of our choices.

Civics lessons are often about laws passed on the state and federal levels, and elections my students won’t vote in for years. Here in middle school, we don’t have laws, per se, but we do have policies that students can shape right now. In my class, we’re learning how to build a strategy. Students chart the steps: here’s the change I’d like to make; here’s the information I need to learn and evidence I need to gather; here are the change agents I need to engage; and here’s how I would convince them to join my initiative. These become the building blocks for 12 and 13-year-olds to truly engage in civics.