Building Civic Literacy for a Healthier Democracy
We equip students, educators, and communities with the tools to understand civic institutions, evaluate information critically, and engage responsibly in public life.
Who Decides What Happens
on Your Street?
A complete, ready-to-teach civic literacy module on local government — what a city council really controls, how a rule becomes law, and how one resident makes their voice heard. Two to three class periods. Nonpartisan. Every fact sourced from the public record.
Local Gov
Primary Sources
Discussion
Civic Action
History, civics, and the evidence behind them
Three things, free to use: classroom-ready lesson plans built on primary sources, interactive history stories students can read and hear, and published research on how history is taught.
Lesson Plans
Free, classroom-ready plans aligned to Utah Core Standards — built around inquiry, primary evidence, and discussion rather than a slideshow of facts.
Browse Lesson PlansInteractive History Stories
The Story Reader reads aloud and highlights every word as students follow along — stories from the Cold War to the Civil Rights Movement, with a story editor for teachers.
Try a Free StoryResearch & Civic Education
Peer-reviewed work on how textbooks and curricula teach American history — plus interviews with scholars and journalists working to improve public understanding.
Read the Published ResearchReady to Teach Tomorrow
Complete lessons — objectives, primary sources, discussion questions, and activities. Every one is yours to use, adapt, and print.
Hiroshima & Nagasaki: How Should We Remember the Atomic Bombings?
A five-day evidence inquiry into decision-making, civilian experience, historical memory, and nuclear ethics
Open the LessonThe Progressive Era: Muckrakers & Reform
U.S. II Strand 2 | Standards 2.1 & 2.2 — How muckrakers exposed corruption and reformers fought for social justice, government accountability, and ...
Open the LessonThe Industrial Revolution & the Rise of Big Business
U.S. II Strand 1 | Standards 1.1 & 1.4
Open the LessonThe Neolithic Revolution
World History — Section 1/6: From hunter-gatherers to agriculture and the rise of civilization
Open the Lesson
Interactive History Stories
for Your Classroom
The Story Reader brings history to life with read-aloud narration, word-by-word highlighting, and engaging stories — from the Cold War to the Civil Rights Movement. Designed for teachers who want their students to read, listen, and understand.
The Declaration of Independence
250 Years of Interpretation
A growing collection tracing how Americans have invoked the Declaration of Independence from 1776 to today — built for teachers, students, and scholars.
The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson & the Continental Congress
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The origin point — the founding promise every later generation would claim, challenge, and reinterpret.
Declaration of Sentiments
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal..."
The first great reinvention of the Declaration — women's rights claimed in the founding's own words.
"What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"
Frederick Douglass, Rochester
"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn..."
Douglass turns the founders' words into a fierce indictment of a nation celebrating liberty while enslaving millions.
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Lincoln re-founds the nation on the Declaration's promise of equality — and makes it the war's meaning.
Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States
Susan B. Anthony, Centennial, Philadelphia
"We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."
Delivered at the nation's 100th birthday — proof that anniversaries become moments of reckoning over the Declaration.
"I Have a Dream"
Martin Luther King Jr., March on Washington
"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."
King casts the Declaration as a check America has refused to cash — the most famous modern invocation of its promise.
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King Jr.
"We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands..."
From a jail cell, King anchors the struggle for justice in the nation's founding ideals.
A Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel
"The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions." The 2000 opinion reviewed the department's 1973 conclusion from the Watergate era and declined to change it.
This is the rule that explains the ending. Students who do not know it exists will read Volume II as evasion. Students who do know it can see that the special counsel was working inside a rule the Justice Department had applied to presidents of both parties.
Democratic National Convention Keynote
Barack Obama
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
More than two centuries on, the Declaration's self-evident truths remain the language Americans reach for to define the nation.
Indictment: United States v. Internet Research Agency LLC et al.
Grand jury, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Special Counsel's Office)
The indictment alleges that the defendants, posing as American political activists, ran social media pages and organized rallies with the stated goal of "spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."
Proves that a great deal of what people argued about in 2019 was already in a charging document a year earlier. Also a clean teaching example of the difference between an indictment (an accusation) and a conviction (a finding).
Attorney General's Letter to Congress on the Special Counsel's Report
Attorney General William P. Barr
"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election." Barr wrote that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein "concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
The best media-literacy document in the set. Barr quoted the report accurately, and the report's own team objected that his summary 'did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance' of their work. Put the letter beside the report and the difference between an accurate quote and a fair summary becomes something students can see for themselves.
Special Counsel's Public Statement on the Investigation
Robert S. Mueller III
"If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime." "The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing."
Two sentences, ten minutes, and the clearest statement of the constitutional argument in the entire case. The second sentence is the civics lesson: the Framers put the judgment of a president somewhere, and that somewhere was not a courtroom.
Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election - Volume I (Executive Summary)
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, U.S. Department of Justice
"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion." "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
This is the document itself, not a summary of it. Two sentences in the same paragraph say two different things: the interference was real and sweeping, and the evidence did not establish coordination with the campaign. Students who read the paragraph rather than the headline can see that both halves were written on purpose.
Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election - Volume II (Introduction)
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, U.S. Department of Justice
"Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. ... [I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
The single most quoted passage of the investigation, and the one most often quoted with its reasoning removed. The special counsel explains that he was not applying ordinary prosecutorial judgment at all. That distinction is the whole lesson: a decision not to decide is still a decision, and it has a reason.
Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Active Measures, Volume 5
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
"Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat."
The counterweight document. A Republican-led committee confirmed the interference and went further than the special counsel on the campaign's exposure to Russian intelligence - while also finding no evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Reading it beside the Mueller report shows students that 'the investigation is over' and 'the record is closed' are different sentences.
Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns (Durham Report)
Special Counsel John H. Durham, U.S. Department of Justice
"The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters." Durham concluded that the Department and FBI "failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report."
The other side of the audit. Students should see that the FBI's own conduct was investigated by a second special counsel and criticized in strong terms, and also that the report produced no new charges against FBI officials over the opening of the case. Holding both halves at once is the skill.
Reading the Machine:
Skills for the Digital Age
The internet runs on attention, algorithms, and synthetic media. These original classroom lessons teach students how the digital world actually works — and how to think for themselves inside it.
Lateral Reading: How Fact-Checkers Verify Online Information
When professional fact-checkers evaluate a website, they almost never stay on it. They leave. A lesson in the single most powerful verifi...
Read the LessonAstroturfing: When 'The People' Are Actually a PR Campaign
Real grassroots movements change history. Astroturfing fakes them. A lesson in how manufactured public support is built, why it works, an...
Read the LessonDeepfakes and Synthetic Media: Seeing Is No Longer Believing
AI can now put words in anyone's mouth and make them look real on video. A practical lesson in how synthetic media works, why it is dange...
Read the LessonThe Algorithmic Attention Economy: Who Decides What You See?
Your feed is not a mirror of the world — it is a machine designed to hold your attention. A classroom investigation into the business mod...
Read the LessonStudent Ideas Board
Students can write down their research ideas and thoughts. Teachers can see everything — every idea, every student.
Critical Thinking
Developing the skills to analyze information objectively, evaluate evidence, and form reasoned judgments on complex issues.
Media Awareness
Understanding how media influences perceptions and learning to identify bias, misinformation, and credible sources.
Civic Engagement
Empowering individuals to participate meaningfully in democratic life through informed action and community involvement.
Free Resources for History & Civics Teachers
Download Lesson Plans · Watch Classroom Interviews · Media Analysis Tools · Story Reader · Publish Your Own Lesson · Join the Teacher Network
Immigration Policy & Human Rights
An in-depth analysis of UN human rights conventions, U.S. immigration history from 1882 to today, and the real-world forces driving migration — including climate change, modern slavery, and transnationalism.
Read the Full Research
Our Mission and What We Do
We believe a healthy democracy depends on an informed public. Our nonprofit works to expand civic literacy and media education, giving individuals the knowledge and skills they need to understand institutions, assess information critically, and participate meaningfully in civic life.
Through educational resources and public-facing programs, we help communities build the foundation for thoughtful civic engagement in an evolving media landscape.
Why Civic & Media Literacy Matter
The stability of a democracy depends on having citizens who know how to push for good policy and have the ability to sort through propaganda. Civic literacy helps people understand institutions, citizen rights and responsibilities, and how public decisions are made. Media literacy enables individuals to evaluate information, recognize bias and misinformation, and engage with diverse perspectives. Together, these skills are vital in an era of rapid information flow and complex civic life. Strengthening civic and media literacy promotes informed participation, respectful discourse, and trust in democratic processes. Individuals with historical background knowledge also have higher levels of civic and media literacy.
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Who We Serve
We serve educators, students, community organizations, and members of the public who are committed to strengthening civic understanding and media literacy. Our resources support classroom instruction, community-based learning, and individual engagement, and are designed to be accessible, nonpartisan, and adaptable across diverse educational and civic contexts.
History Education Scholars
We feature the work of leading experts like Sam Wineburg, whose research at Stanford has revolutionized how students learn to think historically and navigate digital misinformation.
Sam Wineburg
Emeritus Professor, Stanford
"Historical thinking is not a natural process... it goes against the grain of how we ordinarily think."
View Full ProfileFeatured Work
Arthur C. Brooks
Love Your Enemies — disagreeing without contempt
Investigative Journalists
Jane Mayer, Ryan Grim, and more
Critiques of Textbooks
How textbooks shape — and misshape — history
Controversial History
Exploring complex figures and events
The Pinochet File
Lesson plans for World History & Geography
The Neolithic Revolution
World History — From hunter-gatherers to agriculture
Grants & Funding
Finding support for civic education
Immigration Policy
Human rights & U.S. immigration history
Spotting Power: Reframing Media Literacy
Your Democracy & Education journal article — embedded PDF + full text
WMDs in the Curriculum
How textbooks teach the Iraq War's disputed justification — and three ways to teach it
Merchants of Doubt: Free Speech or Free Markets?
How tobacco, oil, and cold warriors manufactured doubt to kill regulation
Dark Money & the Koch Network
How a fortune built with Nazis and Soviets reshaped American politics
The Iraq War & WMDs
How the failure to find WMDs changed American credibility forever
Diana Hess: Controversy in the Classroom
Why democratic education depends on discussing what divides us
Jeremy Stoddard: Media Education for Democracy
Why media education is essential — not optional — for democratic citizenship
Wayne Journell: Teaching Politics in Schools
How to teach about politics without indoctrinating students
11th Grade U.S. History
U.S. History II — Utah Core Standards
Documentaries
Citizenfour, Brave New World, Dark Money & more
Adult Civic Literacy
Tax credit proposal for CA, OR, WA
Civics Compact
A shared promise for informed, respectful civic life
Concepts in History
Cold War · Civil Rights · Industrial Revolution · Great Depression
Story Reader
Interactive history stories with audio narration
Civic Literacy Network
Connect with educators, researchers, students & journalists
Media Literacy & Democracy
A free press is essential to civic literacy — and so is understanding who tries to undermine it. We feature investigative journalists who uncover systems of power, and document bad faith actors who spread misinformation and erode trust in democratic institutions.
Jane Mayer
Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Investigative journalist behind Dark Money — uncovering how the Koch brothers and billionaire networks reshaped American politics. Finalist for the National Book Award.
Bob Woodward
Associate Editor, The Washington Post
Broke the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein. Author of 21 best-selling books on presidential power — from Nixon to Biden. Pulitzer Prize winner.
Daniel Ellsberg
RAND Corp — The Pentagon Papers
Leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing decades of government deception about the Vietnam War. Transformed whistleblowing and press freedom.
Carl Bernstein
Investigative Reporter, The Washington Post
Alongside Woodward, broke Watergate. Their reporting brought down a presidency and changed journalism forever. Author and television commentator.
Anderson Cooper
Anchor, CNN — Anderson Cooper 360°
Anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° and correspondent for 60 Minutes. Emmy Award-winning journalist covering wars, disasters, and the most consequential stories of our time. Author of Dispatches from the Edge.
Ken Klippenstein
Independent Journalist (formerly The Intercept)
D.C.-based investigative reporter known for FOIA battles against DOJ, DHS, and ICE. Exposed national security secrets and surveillance programs at The Intercept.
Gil Duran
Independent Journalist — The Nerd Reich
Investigative journalist tracking tech authoritarianism — how Silicon Valley billionaires influenced by Curtis Yarvin are advancing anti-democratic ideologies he calls "tech fascism." Former communications director for Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein, and Jerry Brown.
Hemu Rahman
Founder, Interval News
Independent journalist and founder of Interval News — pushing back against censorship and surfacing suppressed headlines that corporate media won't touch. Building a news platform that gives people the full picture, free from editorial gatekeepers.
Krystal Ball
Co-host, Breaking Points
Co-host of Breaking Points — the fastest-growing independent news show in America. Former MSNBC host and congressional candidate fighting for a working-class political revolution.
Kyle Kulinski
Host, Secular Talk — Co-founder, Justice Democrats
Host of The Kyle Kulinski Show — over 500K subscribers and nearly 500M views. Co-founder of Justice Democrats, the PAC that launched AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and the new progressive wave in Congress.
Mehdi Hasan
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Zeteo
Award-winning journalist and former MSNBC anchor. Founder of Zeteo, an independent media platform that reached 55K+ subscribers in weeks. Author of the national bestseller Win Every Argument.
Cenk Uygur
Founder & CEO, TYT Network
Founder of The Young Turks — the largest online news show in the world with 25 billion views. Co-founder of Justice Democrats alongside Kyle Kulinski, the PAC that launched AOC and the new progressive wave in Congress.
Ana Kasparian
Co-host & Executive Producer, The Young Turks
Co-host and executive producer of The Young Turks since 2007. Webby Award winner, CSUN journalism lecturer, and columnist for Raw Story. A fearless progressive voice holding both parties accountable.
Two Books, Two Audiences
Our founder writes for the classroom and the kitchen table — a hard look at how money shapes the rules, and a gentle story for the youngest readers.
How the debt trap works
The Payday Empire
Profit, Power, and Politics of Exploitation
The Payday Empire
How the payday lending business model turns a broken paycheck into a lifetime of debt — and the state politics that keeps it legal.
Read About the BookMia & Max and the Smoke Brothers
A read-aloud picture book about two kids, a hazy sky, and the people who look out for each other. Free teaching guide included.
Read About the BookFresh Tools for Teachers
A primary-source reading for 11th Grade U.S. History II, and a PLC workspace you can drop straight into Canvas.
We provide easy to use lesson plans that help teachers create lessons that improve critical thinking.
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History Education Foundation
Education for Democracy
Building civic literacy for a healthier democracy.
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