US Government & Civics

Most kids learn the three branches of government at some point, but actually understanding how they interact — why a president can’t just do whatever they want, what happens when the Supreme Court strikes down a law, how a bill survives hundreds of committee meetings and floor votes — that takes more than a diagram on a poster.

This nine-week program walks through the full structure of American government, starting from the philosophical foundations and ending with what it actually means to be a citizen in a democracy. Every week includes two nonfiction passages and a mix of recall, analysis, and real-world application questions.

The Arc of the Program

Week 1 starts where the Founders started: why do governments exist at all? Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, the social contract. It’s philosophy, but it’s practical philosophy — these ideas are literally baked into the Constitution.

Week 2 covers the Constitution itself: why the Articles of Confederation failed, what happened in Philadelphia in 1787, the Great Compromise, and the brutal ratification fight between Federalists and Anti-Federalists. Week 3 zooms in on separation of powers and checks and balances, with real examples like United States v. Nixon and Andrew Johnson’s impeachment.

Then we spend three weeks on the branches themselves. Week 4 is Congress — the messy, slow, deliberate process of turning a bill into law (with the Affordable Care Act as a case study). Week 5 covers the executive branch: presidential powers, executive orders, the Cabinet, federal agencies. Week 6 is the judicial branch: federal courts, judicial review going back to Marbury v. Madison, and landmark cases like Brown v. Board, Miranda, and Tinker.

Week 7 shifts to rights — the Bill of Rights and civil liberties. First Amendment freedoms get the most attention, but we also cover the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th Amendments, plus how the Supreme Court has defined the limits of those rights over time. Week 8 is citizenship and civic participation: voting rights history, the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments, and what it actually looks like to participate in democracy beyond just showing up on Election Day.

Week 9 ties everything together with integrated problems that cross topics — analyzing the Flint water crisis through the lens of federalism, debating whether the voting age should be lowered, and applying civic knowledge to scenarios a 7th grader might genuinely encounter.

What’s Inside

Five worksheets per week with complete answer keys. The passages read like magazine articles, not textbook excerpts. Questions range from vocabulary recall to evaluating whether a government action is constitutional — real civic reasoning, not just memorization. Aligned to the C3 Framework for Social Studies (C3.D2.Civ.1 through Civ.8).