Articles

Below you can find a number of articles and textual resources for use with the We the People Curriculum, in addition to a few interesting bits of scholarship we've decided to throw in there just for the fun of it.  Enjoy!

• The Ten Commandments of Citizenship - Lee Hamilton
   

• Quotations for Use in Civic Education (PDF)
   

• Supreme Court Addresses Issues of Free Speech, Press and Animal Cruelty
   

•  Should the U.S. Update it's Voting System?

• The Constitution and Education for Citizenship in America by John Patrick (.pdf document)
   

• Civic Education and a Healthy Democracy – An Interview with Ted McConnell (The Politic: Yale University, November 10, 2007)
  An interview with the Center of Civic Education's Director of the Campaign to Promote Civic Education in which he discusses closing the achievement gap, No Child Left Behind Act, and volunteerism, among other topics. "When Horace Mann and other pioneers first advocated for our first system of public education in this country in the early nineteenth century, their principal motivation for doing so was a realization that a representative democracy was a new
  thing to the world and we had to educate our citizens about it in order to maintain it."
   

• Health of our Democracy and Our Economy Go Hand in Hand & Sounding the Call for Civic Education by Lee H. Hamilton & William F. Goodling (Word document)
  Two former members of Congress — Democrat Lee H. Hamilton, and Republican William F. Goodling — issue a joint, bipartisan appeal for America to equip our young people with the knowledge and skills they need to become fully engaged citizens.
   

• Hey, Young Americans, Here's a Text For You (The Washington Post, Sunday, November 25, 2007; Page B04, By Naomi Wolf) and follow up article That's More Like It! (The Washington Post, November 30, 2007)
   

• An Introduction to the Political Philosophy of the Constitution by Duane Smith, Associate Director, Center for Civic Education, January 1, 2000)
   

• Two-Dozen Recent, Good Books for Civic Educators selected and annotated by Margaret S. Branson, June 25, 2007 (Word document)
   

• 'MyVote California' Launched to Encourage Teen Civic Engagement (Government Technology, November 9, 2007)
  To engage teen voters-to-be in the excitement of the February 5, 2008, Presidential Primary Election, Secretary of State Debra Bowen and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell launched MyVote California, a hands-on civic engagement project for high-school students that will culminate in a statewide mock election in January.
   

• Opinion: Civic education is lacking (Norman Y. Mineta, Silicon Valley Mercury News, September 16th, 2008, Word Document)
   

• What binds America is values in our Constitution (Leon Panetta San Francisco Chronicle, Wednesday, September 17th, 2008, Word Document)
   

• A democracy without civics? | csmonitor.com (Sandra Day O'Connor and Lee H. Hamilton, Christian Science Monitor, September 18th, 2008)

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