High School U.S. Government & Politics

Have you ever wondered how the government and politics are connected? Or how you can actively participate in the political process? In AP United States Government and Politics, you’ll examine the relationships between the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court, and explore how different political ideologies and opinions shape American politics.

This is an engaging, project-based course that builds the following skills:

• Connecting political concepts to real-life situations

• Explaining the impact and implications of certain U.S. Supreme Court decisions

• Analyzing data to find patterns and trends and draw conclusions

• Reading and analyzing text and visual sources

• Developing a claim or thesis and supporting it in an essay

There is an AP track option for this course that has extended learning, materials and support for AP students.

Required Course Materials:

• Small (2″) 3 ring binder with 3 dividers (more dividers are fine)
  • Standard lined/”filler” paper
• Access to a Google Drive under the student’s own e-mail address
• Basic calculator at home for homework

Additionally, students will need technical ability to access Zoom, Discovery Education Streaming, OERCommons, Study.com and Canvas (our learning management system).

At home, students will need access to the internet (home or library) to look up information, related published materials and/or videos and do work through our class learning management system.  Some videos will be subscription-based and issued by illuminat-ED (all students will have accounts for Discovery Streaming and Study.com for additional video support).  Some videos will be freely available.

Amount of time will depend on your student’s speed/fluency with writing, reading or the topic at hand and the content of the week. Families should allocate approximately 3 hours/week to complete various assigned labs, tasks or group collaboration that might require internet access in preparation for live class. Some of this can be done during Flex Work Time at our facility.

Students pursuing AP level coursework: should allocate approximately 7-9 hours/week to completing a broad range of tasks including online work in AP Classroom and other resources.  Keep in mind that AP U.S. Government & Politics is a college level course and covers one college semesters of economics.  AP students will be offered an additional hour/week of  Zoom-based “office hours” that can be scheduled based on the instructor’s and student’s mutual availability.

These courses have 2 pre-scheduled Asynchronous Learning weeks during Fall Pause & Mid-winter Pause; but does not have additional assigned work during Thanksgiving Week, Winter Break or Spring Break.

Combined with our live class time, the regular version of this course is a total of 4-1/2 hours/week (except for our 2 asynchronous weeks which will have 2 hours of work) for a course total of approximately 150 hours for the year.  This equates to one full credit using the Carnegie unit methodology.

Live class time will assume students have done their pre-reading, online content and any offline case studies, fieldwork, etc. (if any). We will be collaboratively sharing and discussing results in the context of the assigned readings and asynchronous work in addition to doing practical and group activities.

In the first class, we will cover note-taking skills and some basic executive function skills.  We will spend some time on how to evaluate sources.  This course is about politics but does not project a particular political view on the students – who are redirected to support statements with evidence and evaluate all statements critically, and with an open mind but always seeking evidence to support or refute ideas.