You spoke, we listened

In spring 2010, a nationally representative, random sample of 866 public high school social studies teachers and an oversample of 245 social studies teachers from private high schools* were asked what content, skills or knowledge are most important.  The teachers ranked the Bill of Rights at the top, saying it was absolutely essential for high schools to teach students “to identify the protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.”

In addition, virtually all of the teachers (94 percent) said they used controversies in current events as teaching opportunities to get students engaged and to model civil debate and discussion.  Eighty-six percent said they also brought current events into class lessons.

And then we created this website for you

This website connects our award-winning, comprehensive curriculum on the Constitution and its amendments to daily civics news and student discussion. 

And when we say "connects," we really mean it.  Twice daily,  our nonpartisan writers sift through national and local news and select current events expressly for social studies classrooms.  And twice weekly, they write an article on a portion of this news with links to our multimedia curriculum.  You can use these articles—we call them “Speak Outs”—in your class or right here online.  When your students “Speak Out” at AnnenbergClassroom.org, they participate in a moderated, national dialogue of their peers.

We publish up to 10 news stories a day, many media resources each year, and at least two Speak Outs each week during the school year.

Whether you're here for civics news, student discussion, outstanding multimedia on the Constitution -- or the engaging connection among all three -- welcome!

If you find AnnenbergClassroom.org valuable, please subscribe to our RSS feed, below.  You will receive a feed when a Speak Out is posted, and another each day at 4:30 p.m. EST with our most recent, handpicked news stories.  The RSS feed is an excellent tool for class preparation, and students use it to spot the latest Speak Out and dive in.  Did we mention student engagement?


We consider it a great honor to help you help your students understand their rights and begin their participation in American democracy.  Thank you for your time, and please let us know how we're doing.


*Schmitt, G. J., Hess, F. H., Farkas, S., Duffet, A. M., Miller, C., & Schutte, J. M. (September 2010).  High Schools, Civics, and Citizenship: What Social Studies Teachers Think and Do.  American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI).

Staff

Aous Abbas, Web Developer, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Brenda Curtis, Associate Director, Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics
Gary Gehman, Web Director, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Ellen Iwamoto, Researcher/Writer, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Jen McCleary, Graphic Designer, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Jeremy Quattlebaum, Staff Writer/Web Editor, Annenberg Public Policy Center
Scott Roberts, National Civics Outreach Director, Annenberg Public Policy Center
John Vettese, Staff Writer/Web Editor/ Photographer, Annenberg Public Policy Center