Civics and American Government Curriculum Framework

During the Spring 2000 session of the Connecticut General Assembly, an act was passed requiring students to complete a one-half credit course on civics and American government between grades nine and twelve, beginning with the graduating class of 2004.

The Connecticut Consortium for Law and Citizenship Education has developed this one semester civics course framework as a starting point to help schools in fulfilling the state requirement. The scope and sequence proposed below will also help to align the curriculum with the Connecticut Social Studies Curriculum Framework. We understand that teachers may be pressed for time in developing this course.

The Civics Curriculum Framework is broken into four sections. The first section, Content and Performance Standards, reviews the civics and government section of the Connecticut Social Studies Framework. The second section, Scope and Sequence, provides a brief outline of units and activities integrated with standards. Under Available Resources, several print and media sources, as well as programs are listed that may be useful in both course development and class instruction. The final section, Sample Lesson/Teaching Materials, contains several interesting documents and materials accompanied by suggestions for classroom use.

Download a Microsoft Word version of the curriculum (147 K): Download civicscurric.doc