Book Description
Building Democracy for All is an interactive, multimodal, multicultural, open e-book for teaching and learning key topics in United States Government and Civic Life. It focuses on the importance of community engagement and social responsibility among middle and high school students core themes in the Massachusetts 8th Grade History & Social Science Curriculum Framework.
Designed as a core or supplementary text for upper elementary, middle and high school teachers and students, Building Democracy for All offers instructional ideas, interactive resources, multicultural content, and multimodal learning materials for interest-building explorations of United States government as well as students' roles as citizens in a democratic society. It focuses on the importance of community engagement and social responsibility as understood and acted upon by middle and high school students - core themes in the 2018 Massachusetts 8th Grade Curriculum Framework, and which are found in many state history and social studies curriculum frameworks around the country.
Building Democracy for All has been developed by a collaborative writing team of higher education faculty, public school teachers, educational librarians, and college students who are preparing to become history and social studies teachers. The primary editors and curators are from the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Education. Contributing teachers come from school districts in the Connecticut River valley region of western Massachusetts (Amherst, Gateway, Westfield, Hampshire Regional, and Springfield). As an open resource, the book is being revised constantly by the members of the writing team to ensure timely inclusion of online resources and information.
This open book is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA). You can download Building Democracy for All ebook for free in PDF format (60.6 MB).
Table of Contents
Topic 1
The Philosophical Foundations of the United States Political System
Topic 2
The Development of the United States Government
Topic 3
Institutions of United States Government
Topic 4
The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens
Topic 5
The Constitution, Amendments, and Supreme Court Decisions
Topic 6
The Structure of Massachusetts State and Local Government
Topic 7
Freedom of the Press and News/Media Literacy