Sixth Grade Civics

INTRODUCTION

The Indiana Bar Foundation (Foundation) is excited to be a support and resource for educators who are or preparing to teach the new sixth grade civics class, now required for Indiana middle schools starting in the 2023-2024 school year with the passage of House Bill 1384 during the 2021 Indiana General Assembly session.

The Foundation uses the We the People curriculum to be the base of helping teachers. We the People assists with teaching content to students and applying an inquiry-based approach to your teaching methodology. It also adds an authentic assessment to allow you to easily check the depth of understanding of your students’ knowledge in an authentic manner.

USING WE THE PEOPLE

At the heart of the We the People program is studying academically rigorous inquiry questions and the authentic assessment: simulated legislative hearings. Students learn and study the content of the class. They are given topic-related questions to study and research, typically in small groups, and demonstrate their learning. Students showcase the depth and breadth of their understanding through the authentic assessment.

  1. Students study content and are given inquiry questions as assessment.
  2. Students will work through the questions in small groups (typically 3-5 students) to fully answer the question.
  3. The student panel then verbally presents their answer to the teacher (or another evaluating person or panel). Often, there is a time limit to do this, typically four minutes.
  4. Once the student panel finishes, the teacher or evaluating person/panel will ask follow-up questions to further probe the students’ knowledge and understanding. The follow up question period can last either a set amount of time (often six minutes) or a set number of questions (typically 3 or 4 follow up questions).

See this one-page flyer to better understand the process of the We the People hearing

STANDARDS & STANDARDS ALIGNMENT

Indiana Academic Standards for Sixth Grade Civics

Alignment of the We the People program to the Sixth Grade Civics Standards

SIXTH GRADE CIVICS CURRICULUM RESOURCES

We the People lessons are taken from the We the People: The Citizen & The Constitution Level 1 (4th Edition), published by the Center for Civic Education.