Resources to help teach about Congress, including lesson plans, WebQuests, links to related Web sites, Bloom’s taxonomy, and a glossary and historical notes linked to other site features.

Resources

Lesson Plans on CongressLink
Lesson Plans on the Web
WebQuests
Web Sites about Congress
Online Textbooks
Glossary
Historical Notes
Student Assessment Rubric
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Communicator [ A Web-based newsletter providing educators with news and ideas to improve the understanding of Congress.]
Editorial Cartoon Project
Civil Rights Documentation Project
The 1960s: A Multi-Media View of Capitol Hill

Expert Views

The Voices of Your Classroom are the Voices of Our Future
"It is essential that we provide children with an environment conducive to the learning about, practicing of, and valuing of good citizenship and responsible involvement in national life," Everett Dirksen wrote in The Instructor (March 1967) reproduced here.

What Every Student Should Know about Congress
Suppose you had fifteen minutes to describe the ten most important features of the U.S. Congress - could you do it? What would appear on your list? Judging by most opinion polls and survey results, few Americans could pull it off. So The Dirksen Congressional Center asked leading American political scientist Charles O. Jones to identify the ten most important points that a high school student should know about Congress.

What High School Government Teachers Should Know about Congressional Elections
Political scientist Jeff Bernstein explains why incumbents win re-election at such an astounding rate and offers suggestions about how to teach the subject to high school and college students.

What I Wish Political Scientists Would Teach about Congress
Lee Hamilton, former member of the House of Representatives and director of the Woodrow Wilson Center, explains ten lessons every political scientist should teach his or her students about Congress.

Reporting on Congress: The Role of the Media
Stephanie Larson, political scientist specializing in media coverage of politics, presents a brief overview of reporting on Congress. She explains why a teacher might tackle the subject, suggests how to approach the teaching of this information, and summarizes recent scholarship on the role of media in covering Congress. The selection includes a bibliography of major books on Congress and the media, 1980-2005.