I have taught this course once at Canadian College Italy.  It is technically two 0.5 credit courses that are laid out by the Ontario curriculum. Topics include:

 

• Systems of Government,

• Canada's Federal Government,

• The Political Spectrum,

• Human Rights,

• Resumes,

• Cover Letters, and

• Interview Skills.

 

This course was a change for me from my usual science and math classes.  Since I was teaching students from a variety of countries (Belgium, Venezuela, Mexico, Italy, Canada, and Russia), I opted not to spend too much time in Civics focusing on Canada and instead concentrated on general government and human rights.  The Careers portion was very fun and students gained a lot of practical job-related skills including resumes, cover letters, email etiquette, and interview skills.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Create Your Own Political Party: This project was assigned after we had examined the political spectrum and students took a quiz to find out where they lay on it.  Working in small groups, they were challenged to create a political party. They needed to determine the beliefs that would be central to their party, their goals for Canada, and three policy proposals on which to base their campaign.  They then needed to create a name, logo, slogan, campaign speech, and 1 – 2 minute promotional video for the party.                    to see an example of a group's promotional video. 

 

Human Rights Project: This project had two components that focused on one human rights issue of the student's choice.  In the first component, each student had to research and create a presentation to teach the class about their chosen issue.  I created a handout to guide their research and presentation.  In the second portion, I had students write a letter to a friend or family member from the perspective of a person who was directy affected by the issue that they researched.  The letter was a good way for the students to put themselves in the shoes of someone who has had their human rights violated.  Due to the diversity of my class, each person found an issue that they found personally important and we learned about the political situatin in Venezuela, human rights breaches in the Russian Olympics, bullying, riots in Greece, and the holocaust.  

 

Final Careers Interview: The summative assignment for the Careers portion was an interview for a part-time job with me and the principal.  The students had to select a job to apply for from advertisements that I pulled off of Workopolis and "officially" apply to the job with a tailored cover letter and resume.  It was an excellent overall exercise for the students and many of them commented on how grateful they were to have gotten some experience with interviews before actually applying for a job.