Entry Points: find a way to engage your students and hook them from the beginning. Find out what they know and what they are curious about!
- Something Cool:
- Introduce your students to powerful activist kids who are making the world a better place. Read about Marley Dias and discover how she worked to change the problem she was frustrated with at school. Discuss her advice for kids who want to take action.
- Show this infographic about the craziest laws in each state. Discuss the role of laws and the tension between freedoms and laws. Why might some of these laws have been written? Are they just? Are they useful? Do they infringe upon freedoms?
- Something Funny: Check out editorial and political cartoons, such as the ones posted here. Discuss the argument that each makes and how they make it. Talk about perspective, reasoning, and bias. Encourage your students to consider the serious issues at the root of each cartoon and how the cartoon impacts their feelings about the issue. Challenge students to create their own. Note: I have tried to select nonpartisan comics; depending on the age and maturity of your students and your own comfort level, it might be interesting to choose cartoons that show two sides of partisan issues and uncover the biases and assumptions in each and discuss how such cartoons contribute to or hurt discussion of difficult issues.
- Something Important Happening in the News: You’ll obviously not have a hard time finding something important about our government in the news; finding something that is appropriate and doesn’t inflame partisanship might be a more difficult challenge these days. As you look for good stories and a good hook for government, consider finding stories about local issues, such as development or levies and discuss the pros and cons of each. Or, tackle state or national government news by focusing on the process: name the branches of government involved and the balance of power illustrated by a proposed law, court ruling, or investigation.
- Something to Make You Think: Introduce Government and the study of rights, responsibilities, citizenship, the branches of government, and our Constitution, by sharing and discussing this powerful quote from Molly Ivins, “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.”
Essential Questions: use these big picture wonderings to guide your students to deep understandings as you research, experiment, read, and create.
- What are the most important values that our country was founded upon? Where can we find evidence for those values in our national documents? What role do those values have in our lives?
- What are the rights of a citizen in our country and in our state? What are the responsibilities of a citizen in our country and in our state? How might rights and responsibilities conflict at times?
- What is the role of a citizen in a democracy?
- What is the role of compromise in a democracy?
- What is a limited government? Why is a limited government important?
- What is the role of our Constitution in both our country and our state?
- What is Bill of Rights? Why is it important? What is particularly important about the First Amendment? How does that impact your life?
- What are the roles and responsibilities of each of the three branches of government at both the national and state level? Why are separate branches important and how do they keep power balanced and check the other branches?
The Integrated Curriculum Classroom 