Good morning, friends in civics and the social studies. Recently, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill Five. This bill does a great many things in relation to civics and government, but today’s post is specifically about this aspect, which adds a specific requirement to high school American Government:

“one-half credit in United States Government, which must include a comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom
and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States“

Our work here at the Lou Frey Institute/Florida Joint Center for Citizenship is focused on ensuring that teachers have the resources they need to teach what they are supposed to teach. And this new requirement can be a tricky one to do effectively.

This past summer, we joined other civic education organizations (The Jack Miller Center, Ashbrook, and the Bill of Rights Institute) with the support of the Florida Education Foundation and the Florida Department of Education to support teachers in multiple locations across the state. Our session ‘workshopped’ a lesson/activity that could be used to support implementation of HB5. And we are pleased to make this available now on Florida Citizen.

This lesson will take about a class period, and uses a jigsaw approach to compare our Founding Principles to totalitarianism, using Mussolini’s 1932 work ‘What is Fascism?’ as a starting point. It includes a link to a slide deck that you are free to download and modify as needed.

The lesson comes in multiple formats that you may find useful for modification as well. There are also links to primary sources related to both Communism and Nazism to support additional comparisons.

Questions about the lesson? Email us!