Inspire & Impact
Leadership-development experiences and practices woven into the learner program.
Grab yourPocket Guide
Civic Leadership in Action Program
A Pocket Guide for theCivic Leadership in Actionfor Middle School Students
A guide for facilitators to lead a middle school five-step civic leadership program.
Program information: innovate@depaul.edu
About the pilot
The Barat Education Foundation’s Our American Voice® civic learning and engagement program, now housed at the Center on Representative Government at Indiana University, has joined the DePaul University, College of Education, Office of Innovative Professional Learning (OIPL) to create a unified experience that equips teachers to help middle school learners build civic knowledge, leadership skills, and authentic engagement.
Keep this guide handy: add it to your Home Screen
Important dates, milestones & artifacts
Live program calendar
What’s coming up
Open the live calendar for newly added sessions, milestone dates, and artifact deadlines.
What’s new in this pilot
You already know OAV.
This pilot builds on that foundation.
Future Leader Micro-Credential
A recognition pathway for students and the teachers who guide them.
What teachers need to knowOAV at the core
Eight established civic learning experiences remain the program’s foundation.
Quick-reference shelf
Future Leader Micro-Credential
A short explanation teachers can revisit after the orientation. The full working overview is built into the guide below.
What is it?
Leaders begin with self-knowledge, then connect identity and values to people, heritage, community, and civic action.
What do I do?
Open the working overview for the recognition, CPDU, and credential information available now.
Open teacher working guideWhat do students do?
Student steps and the short evidence they may save will be added with the final micro-credential requirements.
Download materials: insert link here
Timing & helpQuestions? innovate@depaul.edu
Back to AboutThe program
5 Steps to Becoming a Civic Leader in Action
Each part uses the same clear shelf: purpose, learning experience, resources, optional leadership practice, and facilitator notes.
0102030405
Open shelf
Exploring Civic Identity
Begin with the learner. Introduce Civic Leadership in Action.Open shelf
Civics in Action
Explore the principles and ideas that shape civic life.Structure ready
Becoming a Civic Leader
Develop the values, vision, habits, and skills learners will bring to civic action.Structure ready
Civic Purpose, Plan & Impact
Turn civic learning into a student-led improvement project.Structure ready
Voices of Impact - Share, Learn, & Celebrate
Get summit-ready, tell the story, reflect, and celebrate.Part 01
Exploring Civic Identity
Begin with self, introduce the four core principles, and help learners see themselves as people with choices about how they participate, contribute, and sometimes lead.
Begin with self
Move from me to community.
Start the Civic Leadership in Action program with these three experiences. Then use the opening experience below to introduce the four core principles.
Me, Myself, and Why
Open experienceDownload materials: insert link here
Who Are My People
Open experienceDownload materials: insert link here
My Place, My Purpose
Open experienceDownload materials: insert link here
Then introduce the four core principles
The original opening experience uses the program map and primary-source exploration to help learners begin making sense of all four OAV core principles.
Learning experienceIntroduction to the Four Core Principles45–50 minute opening experience
Purpose
Welcome learners, show them the five-part program, and connect who they are to the civic life they already experience.
Learning Experience
Move from a brief welcome to self and community, primary-source observation, the four core principles, and one personal reflection.
Open introduction sessionResources
Five-part program map, two Library of Congress primary sources, observation prompts, and a short reflection are built into the session.
Leadership Practice Optional
Aligned hereOpening sequence · Leadership begins with self-examination
Students build self-awareness and authenticity; then empathy and perspective-taking; and finally agency and collaborative leadership through civic action.
Self, then heritage, then community: learners begin with themselves before they are asked to lead with others.Facilitator Notes
This is an orientation, not a test. Give learners examples before naming the principles, and save full action planning for Part 4.
Choose a student-workbook format
Part 1 Student Workbook
This workbook supports all four opening experiences, including the core-principles introduction. Choose the writable version for Word or Google Docs, or the print version for handwriting. Teachers may adapt the materials to fit their learners and classroom routines.
Part 02
Civics in Action
The established civic learning backbone. Open an experience, then choose the path that fits your learners’ background and readiness.
BeginningBuild shared background
For learners who are new to the topic or benefit from more context and scaffolding.
IntermediateConnect and analyze
For learners with some background who are ready to compare, interpret, and make connections.
AdvancedEvaluate and apply
Levels are not grade labels. A group may use different paths across the eight experiences.For learners ready for greater independence, complexity, evaluation, or civic application.
Core Principle 1
Two civic learning experiencesCitizenship is a way of life, not a singular event.
Citizenship happens every day.
01Learning experienceCitizenship and the Common GoodStudents explore citizens’ rights and responsibilities, then consider how personal commitments support the common good.Essential questionWhat is my vision for the leader I am becoming and the change I want to make?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Placement to decideUnit 5 · Creating Your Personal Vision StatementSania mapped this connection here; Donna’s sequence places Unit 5 in Part 3.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
02Learning experienceI’m More Than You SeeStudents reflect on others’ identities and how basic needs influence a path toward reaching their full potential.Essential questionWhat details of my life carry the most meaning, and how do I help someone else feel them?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Aligned hereUnit 3 · Where I’m From
Donna and Sania both place this identity and story work with this experience.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
Core Principle 2
Two civic learning experiencesWith our rights and freedoms come responsibilities.
Our freedoms matter, and so do our duties to others.
03Learning experienceRules, Laws and ResponsibilitiesStudents explore the value of rules and laws, then consider the responsibility of good citizens to follow them in support of the common good.Essential questionWhat have I witnessed about fairness and unfairness, and what does it tell me about my school or community?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Placement to decideEarlier proposal · Unit 7 Personal Journey MappingKeep this earlier mapping visible for review; the Design Studio note currently recommends no separate I&I experience here.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
04Learning experiencePower to the PeopleStudents investigate the Bill of Rights and its protections, then consider how individual rights relate to them personally.Essential questionWhere does my strength actually come from?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Placement to decideUnit 2 · Stories of Strength: Heritage and Identity MappingProposed landing place after Unit 2 was removed from the opening orientation.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
Core Principle 3
Two civic learning experiencesThe success of the individual and community are interdependent.
People do better when their community does better.
05Learning experienceEveryone’s VoicesStudents consider diverse community needs and wishes, build consensus about a big-box retailer, and reflect on different perspectives.Essential questionWhat do I value, and how do those values guide me when priorities compete?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Placement to decideUnit 4 · Values Discovery and Leadership PrinciplesSania mapped this connection here; Donna’s sequence places Unit 4 in Part 3.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
06Learning experienceMaking It BetterStudents notice strengths and needed improvements in their school and community, then choose an issue and plan how to investigate it.Essential questionHow do the many parts of who I am shape how I see the world—and how others see me?
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
Placement to decideUnit 6 · Identity, Intersectionality, and Leading Across DifferenceSania mapped the unit here; Donna’s sequence carries it across Part 4.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
Core Principle 4
Two civic learning experiencesThe informed participation of the people shapes and sustains our democracy.
Democracy works best when people learn, think, and participate.
07Learning experienceFederal, State and Local GovernmentStudents learn about representative democracy, a republic, and federalism, then decide where to turn when government issues arise.
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
No specific leadership practice is mapped here yet. Add one only when it strengthens this experience.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
08Learning experienceCivic Leadership in ActionStudents identify the qualities of civic leadership they value and already possess.
Choose a learning path
Match this experience to your learners.
No level is the default. Choose again for each experience.
Select Beginning, Intermediate, or Advanced to see the matching goal, timing, and resources.
Purpose
Use the level-specific goal above to match the experience to learners’ current background and readiness.
Learning Experience
Each path moves from inquiry to understanding, connection, and action.
Resources
Teacher and student links appear with the selected path. Add supporting handouts or slides here as they are finalized.
Leadership Practice Optional
No specific leadership practice is mapped here yet. Add one only when it strengthens this experience.
Facilitator Notes
Teachers may move between levels from one experience to the next.
Choose a student-workbook format
Part 2 Student Workbook
One companion keeps all 24 readiness paths together. Each of the eight Civic Learning Experiences includes a Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced page. Teachers select the path that fits their learners; students complete only the page assigned to them.
Part 03
Becoming a Civic Leader
This is the leadership-building space: learners strengthen the values, vision, self-awareness, judgment, and relationship skills they will bring to civic action.
Build the muscle here.Use it in Part 4.
Part 3 develops civic leadership capacity. Part 4 puts that capacity to work on a real issue.
Civic leadership can look like speaking, listening, researching, organizing, creating, caring for others, translating ideas, building relationships, or following through.
Leadership sequence
These two experiences are strongly placed in Part 3. Their earlier Part 2 connections remain visible so the team can decide whether students first encounter them there, deepen them here, or do both.
Values Discovery and Leadership Principles
“What do I value, and how do those values guide me when priorities compete?”
Connects naturally to Everyone’s Voices and prepares learners to make principled choices with others.
Open What Matters MostDownload materials: insert link here
Creating Your Personal Vision Statement
“What is my vision for the leader I am becoming and the change I want to make?”
Connects naturally to Citizenship and the Common Good and gives learners a personal compass for action.
Open The Me I Am BecomingDownload materials: insert link here
From civic muscle to purposeful action
Carry learners’ values, vision, and developing leadership habits into Part 4: choosing an issue, gathering evidence, working across differences, and planning action.
Part 04
Civic Purpose, Plan & Impact
Students collaborate to develop—and when possible implement—an improvement plan for their school or community.
Facilitator planning
Open planning worksheet Choose how this project will work with your group.
Use the planning worksheet to map the six steps, resources, implementation approach, and timeframe.
- 01Select the issue
- 02Study the issue
- 03Evaluate solutions
- 04Develop a solution
- 05Prepare to present
- 06Present the solution
Choose a student-workbook format
Part 4 Student Action Workbook
One team-friendly workbook brings the project tools together: team roles, issue assessment, research notes, action planning, outreach, evidence tracking, and the story of the work.
Program pathway
Move from an issue to a presented solution.
Open the phase you are working on and use the resources that fit your students and project.
01–02Project phaseChoose and understand the issueName the issue, identify what students already know, and gather the information needed to understand it.
Open
Name the issue, identify what students already know, and gather the information needed to understand it.
Unit 6 and Unit 8 can frame identity, purpose, inquiry, ethics, and evidence.
Action Research Capstone Sessions 1–5: move from intention to a proposal, ground the inquiry, choose methods, and collect data.
03Project phaseEvaluate possible solutionsConsider who and what could be affected, examine multiple perspectives, and anticipate concerns.
Open
Consider who and what could be affected, examine multiple perspectives, and anticipate concerns.
Unit 6 supports leading across difference while students consider who is affected and whose perspective is represented.
Action Research Capstone Session 6: analyze evidence and make meaning from what students learned.
04Project phaseDevelop the action planTurn the preferred solution into clear action items, steps, owners, and target dates.
Open
Turn the preferred solution into clear action items, steps, owners, and target dates.
Unit 8 supports purpose, agency, and the student’s role as a researcher and civic leader.
Action Research Capstone Session 7: move from findings to action.
04Project phaseConnect and build supportLearn from stakeholders, contact decision-makers, and invite others to understand or support the plan.
Open
Learn from stakeholders, contact decision-makers, and invite others to understand or support the plan.
Units 6 and 8 support respectful collaboration, communication across difference, and purposeful leadership.
Session 7 continues as students translate findings into an action others can understand and support.
05–06Project phasePrepare and presentChoose how to communicate the solution, prepare the story and evidence, then present it to the intended audience.
Open
Choose how to communicate the solution, prepare the story and evidence, then present it to the intended audience.
Unit 8 supports reflection, legacy, and students naming how they have grown as civic leaders.
Action Research Capstone Session 8: prepare for and participate in the Capstone Symposium.
Project Support Shelf
Four supports that keep the work manageable.
These additions remain available throughout the project.
Team Roles
Clarify how students will share responsibility, make decisions, and contribute to the group.
Structure ready for the role cards or agreement Donna and the team develop.Action Planner
Keep the team’s next steps, owners, target dates, and completed work visible in one place.
Open action plannerOutreach Toolkit
Gather the interview, survey, contacting, and community-support resources when students are ready to reach out.
See outreach resourcesEvidence Tracker
Save research, decisions, contacts, artifacts, photographs, accomplishments, and reflections as the project unfolds.
Open teacher artifact workspaceHow FileChute works
Students save and keep working in their own copy of a writable. When a team is ready to share evidence, it uploads a snapshot of the work using its classroom code.
Let’s try the FileChute practice tourPart 05
Voices of Impact - Share, Learn, & Celebrate
Help learners make meaning from their work, prepare the story they want to tell, and come together for the Civic Leadership in Action Summit.
Select evidence, shape the story, decide how each person will contribute, and practice for a real audience.
Present the work, learn across teams, recognize growth, and imagine what comes next.
Working experience for team review
Open Summit preparation experience A short, action-oriented preparation sequence brings together the strongest ideas from across the Civic Leadership in Action program without turning Summit preparation into a large new unit.
Meaning, Evidence & Audience
Students decide what changed, what they learned, which evidence matters, and what they want an audience to understand.
Roles, Rehearsal & Readiness
Students choose meaningful roles, rehearse, offer feedback, and make the presentation accessible and welcoming.
District Civic Leadership in Action Summit
Students share their action work, learn from other teams in the pilot district, and celebrate civic leadership together.
Legacy Portfolio & Micro-Credential Evidence
Students preserve artifacts, name how they have grown, and select the short, meaningful evidence needed for recognition.
Leadership Toolbox
Use what your learners need.
Optional leadership practices that work across the program belong here. If a practice directly strengthens an experience, place it on that experience’s card instead.
Implementation planning
Open current working mapWord document for planning and team reviewProgram at a Glance
Keep the whole learner program in view as you plan: self and community, civic learning, leadership development, action, and reflection.
View the integrated learning sequence
The OAV civic-learning sequence remains intact. Inspire and Impact is a companion leadership-development strand placed at the moments where it helps students personalize, deepen, and apply their civic learning.
Then: Me, Myself, and Why → Who Are My People
Then: My Place, My Purpose → Power to the People
Students listen across perspectives, identify an issue, and begin investigation.
Then: What Matters Most → The Me I Am Becoming
Across the combined sequence, students develop self-knowledge, understanding of others, belonging, values, systems awareness, vision, and readiness to research and act. Teachers can adapt pacing and support while preserving the civic-learning progression.
This is the current planning map for the pilot. The team-approved version will replace it after final refinement.
Self-awareness
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Relationship building
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Teamwork
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Communication
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Reflection
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Re-engagement
Activity and facilitator-ready resources to be added.
Pilot Collaboration Hub
Share progress. Learn together.
This shared Google Chat space will be the home for questions, ideas, work in progress, and what we are learning throughout the pilot. Share a product, gather ideas, and connect with fellow civic leadership educators. You may see colleagues from DePaul, Barat, the district, and other invited program partners. Please use the space freely—this is support, not surveillance.
How to access the Hub
Google Chat link coming soonLook for your Google Chat invitation and joining instructions in your email before the pilot begins.