The primary goal of We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution is to promote civic competence and responsibility among the nation's elementary and secondary students. What makes the program so successful is the design of its instructional program, including its innovative culminating activity.

The instructional program enhances students understanding of the institutions of American constitutional democracy. At the same time, students discover the contemporary relevance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Participants hold a simulated congressional hearing as the culminating activity for the We the People program. The entire class, working in cooperative teams, prepares and presents statements before a panel of community representatives who act as congressional committee members. Students then answer questions posed by the committee members. The format provides students an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of constitutional principles while providing teachers with an excellent means of assessing performance.

New We the Peple Companion Website Launched

The Center for Civic Education is proud to announce the launch of their new We the People Companion website! The website is designed to be used alongside the new We the People: The Citizen & the Constitution Level 3 text for high school students.

The We the People companion website contains the following features:

• An overview of the student edition, the preface, and the introduction
• The full text of all unit and lesson purposes
• Each term and concept to understand with definitions
• The complete glossary
• Brief biographies of each Founder and Framer mentioned in the student text
• Links to Supreme Court syllabi and opinions for each case described in the student edition
• Links to the full text of primary sources mentioned in the text
• Annotated bibliographies for each unit
• Links to specially selected websites that illuminate concepts mentioned in the student text
• Links to videos and podcasts related to the content of the student text

In addition, the unit and lesson purposes and terms are printable, downloadable and can be listened to in MP3 format (click here to check out the website).