Civics: A Blueprint

Purpose: The basic purpose of 9th grade Civics, in my estimation, is for students to develop the tools necessary to responsibly engage in American civic life. These tools include: a basic understanding of the economic and legal foundations which belie the American civic tradition, a familiarity with the courts, individual rights, and the criminal justice system, and a basic knowledge of consumer economics, local government, and small business.

Emphasis: In my Civics classes, I want to emphasize why community matters, challenging them by the semester's end to develop and implement an individualized plan-of-action, for how they would like to positively impact the success and well-being of their home community, and address what they're going to do about it to make it happen.

As you can see in the 'mindmap' I've created below, I'd like to introduce students to a handful of famous texts in political philosophy (in the form of excerpt readings), even if it's just to grasp the central idea and 'put a bug in their ear' about these texts that they're sure to see again throughout their educational careers. From there, the second part of the course would be much less theory-based, instead focusing on Civic's participatory roles, as applied to the courts, student rights, and criminal justice. Finally, we'd move toward economics and personal finance, emphasizing how students can transform their passions into sustainable careers, and how they can relate their domestic lives to the broader interests of local, state and national governments.

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Challenges: The two challenges that immediately pop-up to me about teaching and following the state guidelines for Civics, is that -- 1) -- it's too much for one semester, particularly also trying to use it as a basic economics course... and -- 2) -- I might have to high of expectations for what 9th graders will be able to discuss and grasp in the theory-based section of the course. If the theory section is a bust, do I cut it and focus on the applicable aspects such as criminal justice and personal finance?
  

Skills: As their first high school social studies class, students should learn how to properly and respectfully debate in a classroom setting. Students should begin to understand how the past has affected the present, and how individual agents and events have prompted change over time.

Students should also learn how to apply their knowledge of rights, courts, and criminal justice to their own lives and (very specifically) learn how to appropriately digest statistical information regarding populations, crimes and other demographic information (understanding differences between rates and absolutes, averages and medians etc.)

Project Ideas: A few include, playing Settlers of Catan to understand the economic foundations of trade, requiring 5 hours of mandatory community service, having students rank crimes and punishments by their perceived severity, watching Parks & Rec. to understand the nuances of local government, and of course, their development of a comprehensive plan-to-action that describes how they hope to make their community a better place.