Make the Citizenship Test the Best Part of Your Civics Class
Once something because a requirement, it often loses its joy. It seems like that’s precisely what’s happened now that the Citizenship Test is a high school graduation requirement in many…
5 Effective Ideas for Teaching the Principles of the Constitution
The main principles of the US Constitution can be tricky to teach for a few reasons. First, you’re introducing them at the beginning of your Civics class before diving into…
How to Create Inquiry-Based Learning in Social Studies
For the vast majority of us, our high school history and social studies classes involved either a lot of memorization, a lot of movies, or both. Either way, they didn’t…
5 Thematic Inquiry Ideas to Frame Your US History Course
So, you’re interested in teaching history more thematically, but not quite ready to commit? Or you’re following a strict scope and sequence, but want to zoom out at least a…
Three Branches of Government: Activity Ideas that Engage
No matter how you structure your Civics class, you’re doing a Three Branches of Government unit. There's no way around it. And it’s for sure your biggest unit, with endless…
Avoid these 3 mistakes when asking questions in your social studies classroom
Asking questions seems easy enough. But after spending any time at all teaching you know it’s not. Certainly, not asking great questions anyway. It’s one of those subtle yet fundamental skills I…
7 Ways Teaching Writing in History will Empower Your Students
We know teaching writing in history class is important. But it can also be incredibly daunting to even think about how to weave it into your content-heavy classroom. So, we…
How to Teach the Election Even in Polarizing Times
Never before have teachers, especially civics teachers, been in such a delicate, but essential, position to be reliable, non-partisan, and unbiased sources on current politics. The 2016 election left so…
5 Websites That Will Help You Teach Civics Like A Pro
We all know about the amazing iCivics web-based curriculum, the generous endeavor founded by former Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. In fact, it seems to be recommended so much in Facebook groups that…
