I’ve always known  that one of the primary goals of my teaching is for students to understand the philosophy behind their rights as Americans, analyze how people have interpreted and defended their rights in the past, investigate how they continue to do so in the present, and to reflect upon their roles in defending their rights and the rights of others. American history class is an ideal place to teach political efficacy, empathy, and social justice.  It is so important that students graduate understanding how the government works and with experience in exploring ways to be the “We the People” that open the Preamble to our U.S. Constitution.  While it is absolutely practical to have students study the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and historical events surrounding how both of those documents were interpreted and redefined, it is even more practical for students to participate in project-based learning that will allow them to really immerse themselves in the process of defining their rights for themselves.

I knew I wanted some sort of PBL for Constitutional study and political efficacy, and while I had an idea in mind, I stumbled upon the Center for Civic Education’s Project Citizen while “designing” the project.  The Center for Civic Education’s program overview describes Project Citizen as:

Project Citizen is an interdisciplinary curricular program for middle, secondary, and post-secondary students, youth organizations, and adult groups that promotes competent and responsible participation in local and state government. The program helps participants learn how to monitor and influence public policy. In the process, they develop support for democratic values and principles, tolerance, and feelings of political efficacy.

The Center for Civic Education offers professional development to help educators understand how Project Citizen works and to give them experience doing the project as well as the appropriate free materials to bring the project back to their own classes.  While I think this is generous and practical, I’ve deviated away from some of the suggestions made at the Project Citizen workshops to tweak the project how I see it working best.  By modifying the Center for Civic Education’s original public policy project, my students have the opportunity to explore the Constitution and the amendments in depth and in a way that is relevant to their lives.  Each year, students choose a policy issue and attempt to solve it through research, design, and action, all of which is based on their interpretation of the Constitution. More often than not, students finish the project feeling empowered because they’ve had the opportunity to practice political efficacy and practice citizenship in a meaningful way. 

Project Citizen takes approximately four consecutive weeks, so space needs to be made for it in the curriculum.  A teacher could also have students work on Project Citizen for one period per week if it is too difficult to carve out that much time.  However, we begin Project Citizen at the very beginning of the year by identifying times when the Americans in our curriculum felt that the government wasn’t doing its job and had to come up with policy suggestions (or a Revolution…) to fix the problems.  We also read the newspaper and watch CNN Student News (www.cnn.com/studentnews) at least once a week to keep up with and analyze current events.

During the project, we don’t use the Center for Civic Education’s provided workbook; however we do use some elements of their curriculum, including the task questions and rubric.  Instead, we begin with defining public policy (again), discussing what is NOT public policy, and individually choosing newspaper articles that deal with public policy to share with the class.  We then use those articles to identify differences between local, state, and federal government as well as the representatives that are involved in each.  When it is time for the class to choose a policy to influence, they do a “brain dump” on the board of policy issues they care about.  They narrow it down to four, and then create preliminary policy presentations on each one with a set of guiding questions:

1. Scope: How many people are affected by the problem in the
population?
2. Intensity: How concerned are people with the problem?
3. Duration: How long has the issue attracted the interest of the
affected population?
4. Resources: Does the issue suggest major change, minor change,
or is it just people letting off steam?1
5. Constitutional: How does your problem connect to the
preamble of the U.S. Constitution? Explain.

1 Larry N. Gerston, Public Policymaking in a Democratic Society (Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe)

Once preliminary presentations are complete, the class votes to take on one of the policy suggestions as a class project.  They break up into groups, each responsible for their own tasks: research, formulating and suggesting policy solutions, class-policy constitutionality, and the action plan group.  While each is has a different part of the problem to solve, they work together to solve it.  It is beautiful as I step into the role of class helper and they really drive the project.  It is empowering for them to make phone calls, write to government officials, and see that they can make a difference, even if it is small.  This year, my students were invited to visit one of our state legislators to discuss state funding of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).  My other class is planning on presenting their policy for school safety to our security staff and hopefully our board of trustees.

If you are interested in implementing Project Citizen, I encourage you to visit the Center for Civic Education’s website: http://www.civiced.org/pc-program, or you can check out all of my materials- including sample projects, student materials, and rubrics by clicking here.