Play & Learn
Teach

Blog

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.

iCivics Joins Partnership for American Democracy to Support Transformative Change for the Renewal of Democracy

Posted on by icivics

iCivics is proud to join the Partnership for American Democracy, a new collective voice for change determined to renew democracy by unleashing the power of American ingenuity. Louise Dubé, Executive Director of iCivics, will serve as the Co-Chair of the Strengthening Civic Education Pillar of the Partnership for American Democracy.

American democracy is more fragile than ever. In this moment of division, the Partnership for American Democracy is bringing together American leaders capable of making transformative change for the renewal of American democracy. To launch the partnership, a cross-sector, cross-partisan array of leaders joined together on July 1 to discuss the next chapter of America’s future and bring the Partnership for American Democracy to life.

“The Partnership for American Democracy is an important network that will provide critical support to make civic education a priority for our country,” Dubé said. “We look forward to working with the Partnership to make that happen.”

The Partnership for American Democracy aims to foster a broad and inclusive vision of democracy renewal that synthesizes five core pillars:

  1. Strengthening civic education
  2. Expanding national service, civic engagement, and volunteerism
  3. Bridging cultural and political divides
  4. Advancing effective government and political reforms
  5. Combatting mis- and disinformation and strengthening local journalism

According to Stephen Heintz, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Co-Chair of the Partnership for American Democracy National Leadership Council, the Partnership is necessary now because many Americans feel the country’s democracy is not working for them, but they want a common purpose and functioning system of democratic self-government.

Event speakers included: 

  • Diana Aviv, CEO of the Partnership for American Democracy 
  • Daniella Ballou-Aares, CEO & Co-Founder, Leadership Now Project; Senior Advisor, Dahlberg Advisors
  • Melody Barnes, Director for Policy and Public Affairs, Democracy Initiative; Former Director, White House Domestic Policy Council
  • John Bridgeland, Founder and CEO, Civic; Former Director, White House Domestic Policy Council
  • Barbara Comstock, Former Member of Congress (D-Va.)
  • Louise Dubé,Executive Director, iCivics
  • Dick Gephardt, Former House Majority Leader (D-Mo.)
  • Stephen Heintz, President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Co-Chair of the Partnership for American Democracy National Leadership Council
  • Alexandra Huynh, National Youth Poet Laureate
  • Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian
  • Dirk Kempthorne, Former Governor (R-Idaho), Former Senator (R-Idaho), Former Secretary of the Interior
  • Eric Liu, Co-founder and CEO, Citizen University
  • Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Former Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command
  • Manu Meel, Co-Founder and CEO of Bridge USA
  • Cecilia Muñoz, Advisor, New America; Former White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council; Former White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs
  • Janet Murguia, CEO of Unidos
  • Deval Patrick, Former Governor (D-Mass.)
  • Nick Penniman, Founder and CEO of Issue One
  • Bruce Reed, Deputy White House Chief of Staff
  • Condoleezza Rice, Director of the Hoover Institution; Former Secretary of State
  • Frank Sesno, Director of Strategic Initiatives of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs; Former CNN Washington Bureau Chief
  • Tim Shriver, CEO, UNITE; Chairman, Special Olympics
  • Kent Thiry, Former Chairman & CEO, DaVita
  • Natalie Tran, Executive Director, CAA Foundation
  • Philan Tree, Two-time AmeriCorps Mentor and 2012 Corps Member of the Year
  • Alayna Treene, Congressional Reporter, Axios
  • Zach Wamp, Former Member of Congress (D-Tenn.)
  • Judy Woodruff, Managing Editor and Anchor, PBS NewsHour

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.

MCCPA Uses iCivics to Connect with Community: Young Leaders and Adult Learners

Posted on by icivics

“The Youth Ambassador Program has allowed me to meet members of my community I would have never met before. By connecting over platforms (like iCivics) which encourage conversations around our civic duty, I have been exposed to new perspectives on issues relevant to my community. As a young adult living in this tumultuous time period, I feel hopeful about creating social change when I see other motivated and passionate adults and peers around me!” – Tasneem Ghadiali, 9th grade

iCivics and MCCPA Youth Ambassadors
Samantha Ruthazer, volunteer Director of Development at the Massachusetts Creating Community Power Association (MCCPA), organized a pilot Youth Ambassador leadership and civic education program where Boston-area young adults learn from community leaders and contribute to MCCPA projects and programs. Young adults in this program build their leadership skills through education and action surrounding increased civic engagement. As the vision for this program states: By accessing education and connections with local leaders, participants in the youth ambassador program will increase their understanding of how to increase their civic engagement and will partake in action that supports community growth. The Youth as Civic Experts Network from iCivics, teens from across the country, engage in virtual programming that closely models what our program aims to become; education and action that engages our leaders and creates change. 

Ruthazer connected with Amber Coleman-Mortley, Director of Social Engagement at iCivics, and arranged a meeting for the iCivics “Youth as Civic Experts” and MCCPA’s Youth Ambassadors to meet. At the heart of each program is the goal to connect, to create spaces that elevate youth voices, and to encourage active civic participation amongst young people. What was truly remarkable in the meeting of the two groups were the reflections on the action and growth they have experienced; students expressed their appreciation for a program and peers that pushed them to engage in further learning outside of their standard coursework, especially where civics curriculum has decreased or disappeared from the required academic curriculum in many states and schools. 

Using iCivics with Our Community
In an effort to bring fun and interactive methods for engaging with this work, MCCPA found that iCivics’ game-based learning approach was creative and effective. Whilst still in a pandemic, MCCPA has now hosted two virtual game nights using the iCivics platform. Youth Ambassadors facilitated groups of their peers and adult learners from across the Boston area, utilizing iCivics as an inclusive way to reach a variety of types of learners. Playing LawCraft, for example, has been a fan-favorite, and the feedback from the youth program and MCCPA community members has been exclusively positive. In small Zoom breakout rooms, players can discuss each decision as they play the game, while connecting the issues to Boston and thinking about what they would like their lawmakers to do in similar situations. 

About MCCPA
MCCPA, the Massachusetts Creating Community Power Association, was founded in June of 2020 as the United States was in a state of distress, with a global pandemic and civic unrest after the murder of George Floyd. Union Capital Boston members were interested in using the community they had cultivated to create action, and after a few months of Virtual Network Nights and meetings to heal collectively, MCCPA was born. 

MCCPA founding members Thomas Ruffen, Samantha Ruthazer, and Danielle Kalette recognized that there are hundreds of thousands of citizens not registered to vote, who do not exercise their right to vote, or are misunderstood about their civil rights and the way the American democratic system is set up. Their mission in creating this organization was to educate our community and find ways to prioritize marginalized identities, sharing power and voice, and using civic engagement as the mode of fighting racism and promoting racial justice in Boston and beyond. 

MCCPA is a developing program, and we hope to continue utilizing iCivics programming and collaborating with organizations in the Massachusetts area. We do not want to recreate the wheel, and by building on the strengths and offering of existing programs, we are truly creating our power, together. 

Written By Samantha Ruthazer

Samantha is a founding member of MCCPA. Follow MCCPA on Twitter at @MCCPA20.

We Owe Our Deepest Appreciation to Our Nation’s Civics and History Teachers

Posted on by icivics

As we approach the end of the 2020-2021 school year, we owe our nation’s civics and history teachers our deepest gratitude. This has undoubtedly been one of the most challenging school years in recent memory for all teachers, but amid cascading social and political crises, it has been particularly challenging for those who teach about our history and system of government. Civics and history teachers deserve special recognition and appreciation for a job well done through such uncertain times. 

Together, iCivics, Facing History and Ourselves, the Bill of Rights Institute, National Constitution Center, the Center for Civic Education, the Ashbrook Center, Generation Citizen, and Mikva Challenge want to send this message of gratitude to civics and history teachers across the nation.

Thank you for your perseverance this year. Thank you for prioritizing the well-being and growth of your students, for navigating complex and challenging, but meaningful conversations on current events, while still guiding your students through the core curriculum. Thank you for continuing to cultivate informed, engaged civic participants, especially when our civic and political climate was so tense. And thank you for continuing to build equitable and inclusive learning experiences for all students, especially when classroom learning was disrupted or moved fully online.

Your efforts have not gone unnoticed. We’ve been listening to you and watching with awe as you work—and we’ve been taking notes. Here is what we have learned from you this year:

  • We need to be steadfast in the support of our nation’s students and teachers, inside and outside of the classroom.
  • We need to be dedicated to lifting up and connecting with our colleagues both  within and outside of our fields.
  • We need to work to ensure that you are supported in your mission to teach about our history and our form of government, even when it’s thorny and controversial.
  • We need to continue to provide you with the resources that make your job easier and meet the needs of your evolving classrooms.  
  • We need to be relentless in our work of building a sustainable future of our constitutional democracy through the prioritization of civics and history in our nation’s classrooms. 
  • We need to continue to work with teachers and students who want to build equitable and inclusive classrooms for all students.
  • We need to continue to listen to you.

We promise you this: It did not go unnoticed that you rose above the challenges faced during an unprecedented school year. As always, your students learned so much from you, and so did we. Thank you for you for your service and dedication to your profession and to our constitutional democracy.

Signed with profound gratitude,

Making iCivics Lessons Accessible and English Learner (EL) Student-Friendly with Kami

Posted on by icivics

With many students still learning online and more classrooms integrating technology to aid instruction, the need for accessibility is greater than ever. Through our partnership with Kami, we’re prioritizing accessibility and, in particular, focusing on improving learning experiences for English and multilingual learners (ELs and MLs). Below, we’ve highlighted some key features from Kami that you can use with iCivics lesson plans to help ELs/MLs better access and engage with the class materials.

Dictionary

Do your ELs need help with challenging vocabulary terms? The dictionary function, (left side toolbar; second from the top), makes it easier for students to learn the meaning of new words. When they highlight a word in the document, the dictionary function automatically pops up a definition without taking attention away from the lesson at hand.

Text To Speech

Some students may prefer having text read aloud to them, instead of actively reading the document. With the Text-to-Speech tool, students can select text to be read to them. And there are many voice options to choose from (including some interesting accents!). When you view a document on Kami, you will find the Text To Speech feature on the left side toolbar. It’s the microphone icon (third from top).

This tool could be particularly useful to English learners who could benefit from assistance with reading or are working on their listening skills. If the reading speed is too fast, they also have the option to slow down the playback speed to ensure maximum comprehension.

Comment

The comment function, which comes in text, voice, video, or screen capture format, is a tool that can be used for a variety of purposes—particularly to communicate beyond the text and provide feedback. Some educators have found themselves using this function to customize reading assignments for their class and check for reading comprehension. But this function is also great for helping ELls interpret the text with the ability to comment in their native language. 

For students with some learning disabilities, the text, voice, and video comment options enable better communication. For example, with video commenting, instructors can interact with students beyond written text to provide more engaging face time or give feedback in sign language. 

Voice Typing (or Speech-to-Text input)

Does a student require assistance when it comes to typing or writing out their answers and notes on the document? They can utilize speech-to-text to input answers or to transcribe text directly into a text box. When adding a text comment, they can enable speech-to-text by clicking on the microphone icon (by selecting the comment icon and then clicking on the microphone icon below it). Or when typing directly onto a document, after creating a text box, the speech-to-text microphone can be found on the text formatting bar at the top of the screen.

The Drawing and Shapes Tools

For visual learners, the drawing tool and the shapes tool allow students to draw, make charts, or organize thoughts by creating a mind map or an outline. For written languages with a more complex typing system (like Chinese, Japanese, or Russian), students can jot down their thoughts in that language in the document with the drawing tool.

More from Kami

These are only some of the available features when using Kami with iCivics accounts. There are also other functions such as a dark mode that helps prevent eye strain. If you have a paid Kami account outside of iCivics, such as with your school or district, you can continue exploring these functions across other documents.

Learn more about Kami’s accessibility and ELL efforts. We also encourage educators to become a Kami Certified Educator and learn how to get the most out of Kami’s tools and improve learning outcomes for students.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Neil Gorsuch Discuss Importance of Civic Education

Posted on by icivics

In a recent conversation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the National Security Institute (NSI), iCivics Board Member and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and fellow Justice Neil Gorsuch discussed the importance of civic education in building societal resilience. The ongoing pandemic, the spread of misinformation, and the increase in discord in American politics have caused growing concerns about the survival of the democratic republic. 

“This is the scariest of times, and the most exciting of times,” Justice Sotomayor noted during the conversation. Heated partisan debates have revealed “cracks in our system”, but this on-going discourse has also engaged people in civics who otherwise have not been involved. To fix these divisions, both Sotomayor and Gorsuch agree, an investment in civic education is a national security imperative. 

“[Civic education] is about engaging people in being active participants in change, with knowledge and with passion, without hatred. And I say that because too much of that conversation in our nation is centered on the negative and too little on the positive of what we share in common,” remarked Sotomayor. 

Since 2015, Justice Sotomayor has been on the governing board of iCivics, where she helps guide iCivics educational content and acts as an ambassador for the advancement of civic education. She noted iCivics and the CivXNow coalition as two key resources working to improve civic education across the country in the interview.

Justice Sotomayor also cited a recent study that found 18% of Americans believe army rule of the country is a good thing. In order to recognize the threats to democracy, it is critical that Americans “know about our democracy and understand its importance,” she said, adding that in order to counteract against these threats to our national security, we must call for robust civics education. Justice Gorsuch agreed with Justice Sotomayor in that he’s “less concerned in some ways about foreign enemies,” and is more concerned about the loss of community and sense of shared liberty that allow America’s enemies to sow internal disagreement.

In the U.S., the federal government funds STEM education at a rate of $50 per student each year, while civics and history education only receives 5 cents per student each year. “I don’t know if the disparity should be that large or how much closer we should come to equalizing the two,” Justice Sotomayor said, “but the disparity given reports of how little our students know about civics should be a point of concern for everyone.” 

Watch the full discussion here