This complete online textbook covers American history, government, and economic concepts. Resources include readings for students, activity directions for teachers, and handouts that are downloadable and printable for classroom use. Content is geared toward students in grades 8-12. All materials are aligned with Common Core and individual state standards.
Voices of History
Voices of History is a collection of eight Bill of Rights Institute curriculum resources including Being An American, Preserving the Bill of Rights, Founders and the Constitution, Supreme Court DBQs, Liberty and Security in Modern Times, Religious Liberty: An American Experiment, and Heroes and Villains. Teachers will have free access to each resources’ lessons plans and handouts.
Individuals Influence Public Policy
In this lesson, students are presented with a controversial school policy and given two viewpoints on the issue. They are then divided into groups, and asked to provide reasons for and against the policy. After deciding whether the policy should be changed or not, the students are asked to reflect on why policies might change and what factors influence policy decisions.
Responsibility and Community Service
This lesson explores how groups of people (or animals) come together to solve community problems. Students will identify a variety of personal responsibilities and civic responsibilities from a set of pictures in order to get a better understanding of what responsibility means. Students will understand that citizens in the United States have a responsibility to help others.
Taking a Stand
This lesson teaches the importance of being informed, forming opinions, and advocating for those opinions to our country’s political life. Students will understand what it means to take a stand and why it is important for citizens to do so for an important issue.
Victoria Goes to Court
This is a children’s book by Benny Agosto, Jr. and his daughter, Victoria Agosto, and its story describes the importance of the legal system to fighting injustice.
Rules, Rules, Rules
In this lesson, students are asked to play a game – passing an object, such as an eraser – in which the rules are unclear and keep changing. Students are then asked to actively reflect on when and why rules are important and necessary. The leader might then connect rules of the game to the rule of law, and discuss the importance of law in our communities and in our society.
Why Should We Care? Understanding Rights and Responsibilities as Citizens
Students will identify some of the rights they enjoy as a citizen, and what responsibilities accompany those rights. They will reflect on whether or not they have a responsibility to protect the rights of others as well as their own.
Mediation and the Adversarial Process
Students are first asked to resolve a hypothetical case via the adversary process. Each student is assigned the role of plaintiff, defendant, or judge. The plaintiff and defendant argue their case in turn, and the judge renders a decision. Students are then asked to reflect on the resolution. They are then instructed to resolve the same case via mediation, and to compare the two methods of dispute resolution.
Rights in Conflict: The Case of the Professional Tap Dancer
In this lesson, the leader presents students with a situation in which one person’s rights conflict with another’s. The students will identify the problem, suggest solutions, and discuss the potential outcomes of their proposed solutions. The leader encourages students to think about which solutions are most fair, and can use the situation to illustrate the importance of having and adhering to clear rules ahead of time.