Lessons 1 through 5

These core lessons provide students with key content and skills they need to choose an issue and begin taking civic actions.

Lesson 1: A Different Kind of Government Course introduces students to the Civic Action Project (CAP) as a practicum for their government course. To help students understand CAP’s rationale, they first discuss why government is a required course and then brainstorm knowledge, skills, attitudes, and actions of effective, productive citizens.

Lesson 2: Introduction to Public Policy introduces the link between policy and First, students read and discuss a short article defining policy. Then they discuss policy and its connection to problems. Next, in small groups, they do a newspaper search to find examples of public policy.

Lesson 3: Problems, Policy, and Civic Actions gives students further background in problems, policy, and civic action to prepare them for CAP. Students analyze problems in terms of causes and effects. Next, they explore how policy can be linked to problems. Finally, they list possible civic actions that can be taken when working on a problem. At the end of Lesson 3, the CAP Proposal from the Planner is assigned. Students will propose an issue they want to work on and convince their teacher that this issue is worthy of a CAP project. This launches the project-based learning component of CAP.

Lesson 4: Introducing Policy Analysis helps students develop a deeper understanding of public policy and the interaction between government and citizens in making policy. They look at case studies and are introduced to policy analysis.

Lesson 5: Policymaking in the Three Branches of Government introduces students to executive, legislative, and judicial policymaking and to policy evaluation. First, students discuss how policy can be made by each of the branches. Then they read about and discuss how the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance to suppress gang activity and how each branch of government was involved in the policy.

Option A (Policy Analysis): Students are introduced to GRADE, a policy-analysis rubric and apply it to the gang ordinance.
Option B (Civil Conversation): Students use the civil conversation strategy to analyze the Chicago gang ordinance.

Supplemental Lessons

These supplemental lessons provide additional skill-building and U.S. government content as students continue their projects.

Civic Action Survey provides students with an opportunity to discuss and examine the importance of surveys to measure public opinion about their CAP problem or issue. First, students will form pairs to take turns conducting and responding to a sample survey. Next students will learn about the types of questions that should be included in a survey. Finally students will convene in their civic action groups to brainstorm three different types of questions as the basis for their own civic action survey. 

Persuading introduces students to the art of persuasion. First, they read about and discuss the three types of persuasion: logos, ethos, and pathos. Then students prepare two-minute persuasive talks on why the issue that they have chosen to address in CAP is important. Finally, in pairs, students present and critique one another’s talks.

Building Constituencies introduces students to the importance of gaining support to impact public policies. First, students complete a brief reading about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Next, they examine documents created during the boycott and identify the civic actions taken to help build constituencies. Finally, in small groups, students brainstorm how they can get support for their CAP issue.

Persuading Policymakers informs students that legislative and executive bodies often hold public hearing and how students can make effective presentations at these hearings. First, students read about public hearings and techniques for making presentations at these hearings. Then students role play a city council and people appearing before it attempting to persuade policymakers on hypothetical issues.

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Introduce Students to the Link Between Economics and Public Policy

In this lesson, students first discuss making decisions in terms of trade-offs and opportunity costs. Then, students read and discuss a short article on doing cost-benefit analyses, using the minimum wage as a case study. In small groups, students conduct their own cost-benefit analysis of policy proposals that addresses local issues. More. . .

Planners

The CAP Planner is a set of documents that guide students through the processes of choosing a problem, taking civic actions, and preparing a report on their CAP project. The CAP Planners are aligned to Common Core State Standards for writing in history/social studies. Students also keep track of sources they used throughout their CAP project. For each Planner page the students write and organize new information:

Proposal: Students prepare a proposal to persuade you that the problem/issue they want to work on is worthy of a long-term project.
Thinking it Through: Students analyze causes/effects and propose their first civic action for your approval.
Civic Action: Students report on their last civic action, track the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they gained, and propose their next civic action for your approval. (Most teachers assign at least four Civic Action Planners.)
Report: Students discuss the civic actions they took and the impact they made on their selected problem/issue, reflect on their own learning.

Viewing and Reviewing the Planners

Once students click “submit” on a planner document, you can chose to be notified via email. If you prefer not to grade online, with one click, your students can create a PDF or print their Planner documents.