Master skills, explore new ideas, and build your teaching toolbox with free live, recorded, and on-demand training.
Learn about services designed to build educator capacity and cultivate dynamic educational experiences for students.
We’ve got answers. Visit our Support Desk to learn how to set-up and use your My iCivics Account.
Explore opportunities we’ve designed to create community and build your expertise.
Still stuck? Our Support team is standing by to help. Submit a request and we’ll be in touch.
Students work through the writing process by creating an outline for or against banning band t-shirts in schools. Students organize the information from their idea web into an…
Prepare students for persuasive writing by introducing them to the concept of making an argument. Students discover there’s a difference between “arguing” and making an argument in…
Students meet Ben Brewer and find out what happened the day he decided to wear his favorite band t-shirt to school in violation of a new dress code rule. Students read a summary of…
In order to build arguments for their essays, students examine evidence about whether band t-shirts were disruptive at Ben’s school. Students think critically to filter out…
Students begin to organize their arguments and evidence both for and against the rule banning band t-shirts. Students learn the necessity of clear organization, generate main and…
Students meet “Yabbut Rabbit” and learn how to flesh out the support for their arguments by developing counterargument. Using the technique they learn in this lesson, students add…
As a precursor to writing a rough draft, students learn that you can’t ignore evidence for the other side of an argument. Students learn how to use complex sentences to minimize…
Students make direct connections between the format of an outline and the organization in an essay. Using side-by-side examples, students see how the outline translates into a…
Lesson Plan