This ‘Tournament of Presidents’ activity gives students an opportunity to evaluate the presidents using a "bracket style" competition. Students will examine individual leadership characteristics that are key to the success of the chief executive. Students will utilize C-SPAN Presidential resources with special emphasis on the C-SPAN's 2021 Historians Survey of President Leadership.

In this lesson, students interrogate their own assumptions about Abraham Lincoln in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of who Lincoln was. They investigate primary source documents in order to analyze the elements of Lincoln's life that have become legend and those that have been forgotten by history.

This DBQuest activity has student explore and analyze primary source documents (preambles and introductory text of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution) to begin to understand the thinking behind the formation of our United States govenment.

Instructor Notes: Teachers can assign this content to their students in iCivics account and then Clicking the Assign button on this activity. Teachers will then have the option to add a Class into iCivics OR Sync a roster from Google Classroom. This will allow teachers to see student's responses. There are also Downloadable Resources available to support this learning activity.

In this lesson, students analyze a daring challenge to the legal and social order of the time: Susan B. Anthony’s casting of an illegal ballot in the 1872 presidential election. Anthony was ultimately put on trial, convicted, and fined $100 for her “crime.” In this lesson, students close read an excerpt from Anthony’s speech Is It a Crime for Women to Vote? in which Anthony defended her actions. The speech, written prior to Anthony’s trial in 1873, contains many themes that resonate with contemporary debates about membership in American society. At a time when voter suppression, gerrymandering, and election interference dominate the headlines, this lesson prompts students to draw connections between the past and present, especially around acts of civil disobedience, the role of voting in a democracy, and the meaning of equality.

Video collection of Park rangers discussing the events of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The unit includes student activities.

The Problem: Online videos are easy to create and distribute. Evidence presented via video is becoming an increasingly popular way to support claims online. However, videos can be especially challenging to evaluate effectively. Too often, we are convinced by what we see (or think we see) and do not carefully consider how the video could misrepresent its subject.

This short lesson helps students practice analyzing video evidence. Students complete a task that asks them to evaluate a video that makes a claim and supports it with selectively edited video evidence. They then read and discuss an article about the video. Then they watch an unedited version of the video to practice skills for analyzing video evidence.

Note: Civic Online Reasoning is motivated by three driving questions: Who's behind the information, What's the evidence and What do other sources say? This lesson is an introduction to one of the main concepts. Registration is required and free.

"Teach students about civic participation and the role it has played in our judicial history with this two-part lesson comprising historic cases, a classroom mock trial, and a research project. Objective: Your students will analyze the impact of historic cases and the role of civic participation in these cases. Students will also demonstrate their understanding of the basic elements of a trial through a mock trial proceeding.
Time: Two class periods
Materials: Student Worksheets #1 and #2, access to online resources, paper, pencil or pen"

Do your students have what it takes to be the next hit Broadway musical producers? In this free civics learning game, students assume the role of a theater producer adapting true events from United States history to the stage. It’s up to them to analyze primary sources from the Library of Congress to create a new smash Broadway musical hit that is historically accurate and celebrates the power of ordinary citizens in creating change. Students work with different theatrical departments to learn about important aspects of creating a musical, such as costuming, set design, writing, and music. Once all the mini-games are complete, they are rewarded with a scene from their musical on opening night, completely personalized based on the creative choices they made during their game experience.

This lesson introduces click restraint, a strategy that helps students resist the urge to click on the first search result they receive in a search engine. Students learn to scan the results they receive to make an informed choice about which result to choose first.

Teacher materials, Student materials, and Presentation slides are included in this lesson.

This DBQuest activity has students explore and analyze George Washington's cover letter to the Constitution, which served as an introduction and kick off for the nations's Constitution. Washington's cover letter gives background to the process of creating our Constitution but is also persuasive to its intended audience.

Instructor Notes: Teachers can assign this content to their students in iCivics account and then Clicking the Assign button on this activity. Teachers will then have the option to add a Class into iCivics OR Sync a roster from Google Classroom. This will allow teachers to see student's responses. There are also Downloadable Resources available to support this learning activity.

Using primary sources related to the official proclamation of Columbus Day as a holiday at the national level, this activity asks students to analyze the documents (official proclamation and a newspaper advertisement) to determine why President Harrison chose to declare it as a holiday. Accessing the lesson/document does require setting up free account.

The National Park Service has created a K-12 curriculum that focuses on scaffolded lessons that focus on Martin Luther King’s advocacy, the March on Washington and other leaders of the Civil Rights movement.

Website with different lessons focusing on:
1.Analyze primary and secondary sources representing conflicting points of view to determine the proper role of government regarding the rights of individuals.
2.Analyze primary and secondary sources representing conflicting points of view to determine the Constitutionality of an issue.
3.Assess the short and long-term consequences of decisions made during the writing of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
4.Compare the components of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with the Constitutions of other nations.
5.Evaluate contemporary and personal connections to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
6.Compose a reflection and assessment of the significance of Constitution Day and the U.S. Constitution.

This lesson will use removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans as a case study and means to
examine the broader question of the fate of Confederate monuments. In discussing this issue, students will reflect more
broadly on the legacy of slavery and the Civil War in modern American political debate and life and will also engage
in the practice of discussing a controversial issue with nuance, civility, and thoughtful engagement with multiple
perspectives.

Support your students to embrace the larger questions featured in American Creed that ask:

What ideals unite us as a nation?
Where does a nation’s identity come from?
These lesson plans bring together teaching strategies, videos, and activities that will help you explore themes such as common ideals and national identity.

In this lesson, students will explore the travels and discoveries of the Vikings. After viewing a short video about the Eric the Red and Leif Ericson, students will analyze a painting that depicts a Viking ship at sea and then read an Icelandic saga written about the early Norse people. The lesson will conclude with students researching the impact the Vikings had on the region of their choice and completing a report or presentation.

When James Madison set out to write the First Amendment, he was careful to include protections against the
national establishment of religion. The framers had experienced a world in which the church ran the government
and did not want to repeat that experience. The issue of government established religion is still relevant in our
country today. In this lesson, students will learn about the establishment clause and will examine four major
issues that center around it.

Many Americans do not fully understand the history and text of the First Amendment, even if the rights enshrined within
are used every day. While many Americans, like much of the founding generation, can agree that freedom of the press should be protected, there are disagreements over when, why, and how freedom of the press may be limited. This lesson encourages students to examine their own assumptions and to deepen their understanding of the currently accepted interpretation of freedom of the press under the First Amendment

This lesson builds student understanding of the relationships between the United States’ founding documents by comparing and contrasting the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Using a close reading guide, students will explore the key concepts in Jeffrey Rosen and David Rubenstein’s “Constituting Liberty: From the Declaration to the Bill of Rights,” accessible on the Interactive Constitution at constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution.

Your students can more fully explore the U.S. Constitution’s history and what it means today with the new Interactive Constitution, where scholars of different perspectives discuss what they agree upon, and what they disagree about. These experts were selected with the guidance of leaders of two prominent constitutional law organizations—The American Constitution Society and The Federalist Society. This project is sponsored by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Please note that the link in the lesson plan for “Constituting Liberty: From the Declaration to the Bill of Rights” is rather difficult to locate, but is available here: https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/13_Exhibition_Pamphlet.pdf.

In this activity and set or resources from the Newseum ED, students grapple with free speech-related conflicts and controversies using real-life scenarios. They deepen their understanding by taking a position and supporting their arguments with evidence from a gallery of print and visual sources.

The lesson requires a free registration for Nesweum ED resources.