Teaching Contentious Topics & Civil Discourse

The way you approach the contentious topic matters. In this post, I discuss best practices and resources to help you!

Teaching AP Government Resource Round Up

Last year, around this time, I was looking at my calendar for Spring 2020 and knew I needed a solid plan because my semester was short (to the test), and I needed to make the best of my time. Add in the usual college visits, random Arizona illnesses, and other things my days would have […]

Discussing Citizens United: Documents and a Socratic Seminar

Oh campaign finance. The wonderful world. {take a deep breath and continues to pretend it’s super fun!} *I take 2 regular and 1 block day for this. On Friday, I assigned Citizens United v. FEC. They are not writing the DBQ, but using the documents (including Federalist 10) to prepare for a Socratic discussion on […]

Teaching Quantitative Analysis in AP Government

I recently received an email from a first year AP GOPO teacher asking if I had any tips for teaching quantitative analysis. I remember first seeing the words “quantitative analysis” when the changes were made the the AP curriculum, rolling my eyes, and thinking “Don’t students already know how to read a graph” Narrator (I […]

Unit 5 Resources: Election Season in AP Government

“We should be giving students the tools to learn and know what they want about the election, as well as what they need to know regarding the curriculum.”

Student Lead Projects and the Hamilton Mix-Tape

In 2016, my whole life changed. We had a class in our school called Creative Musicianship, and the teacher was a like-minded educator who loved to take risks and was on board with anything that allowed students to express themselves.