Teacher’s Edition

The pur­pose of this cur­ricu­lum is to encour­age civic par­tic­i­pa­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing and the devel­op­ment of research skills among stu­dents uti­liz­ing a top­ic of cur­rent inter­est. This web­site and its accom­pa­ny­ing mate­ri­als are designed to assist both teach­ers and stu­dents in an explo­ration of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, argu­ments for and against its use, as well as issues of ethics and jus­tice that surround it.

Teachers will find detailed les­son plans for two pos­si­ble two-week units. However, teach­ers are encour­aged to take a look at the ratio­nales of the units and explore strate­gies of their own. Supplementary research mate­ri­als and Internet links to a wide array of oth­er resources are pro­vid­ed. The cur­ricu­lum is designed for upper mid­dle and high school stu­dents in such cours­es as social stud­ies, his­to­ry, civics, US Government, ethics, pub­lic speak­ing, and current events.

Students will find an inno­v­a­tive and inter­ac­tive web­site that is ide­al­ly suit­ed for class­room use involv­ing group work, class dis­cus­sions, and inde­pen­dent reflec­tion. However, stu­dents doing inde­pen­dent projects may also use the site. 

The cur­ricu­lum encour­ages on-line stu­dent involve­ment in activ­i­ties that close­ly resem­ble the expe­ri­ences of ordi­nary cit­i­zens encoun­ter­ing this issue. The sim­u­la­tions are designed so stu­dents can active­ly par­tic­i­pate in demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion-mak­ing. For exam­ple, they can take part in a mock leg­isla­tive hear­ing, do research using the site, and then engage in a role play offer­ing tes­ti­mo­ny on the death penal­ty from mul­ti­ple points of view. They also will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve on a jury to decide between a life sen­tence and the death penal­ty in sce­nar­ios based on actu­al cas­es. Both units pro­vid­ed on the site also con­tain a heavy empha­sis on per­sua­sive writ­ing and speech.

The authors of the cur­ricu­lum have made every effort to ensure that the edu­ca­tion­al approach is bal­anced, respect­ing the views of all sides in this often-spir­it­ed debate. The site was prin­ci­pal­ly designed by the Michigan State Communication Technology Laboratory, which has pre­pared a num­ber of award-win­ning edu­ca­tion­al sites on oth­er top­ics. Teacher edu­ca­tors in con­junc­tion with prac­tic­ing teach­ers, in the fields of social stud­ies, his­to­ry and reli­gion, worked togeth­er to devel­op the cur­ricu­lum. Factual con­tent was pro­vid­ed by the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that con­ducts research on issues relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The Center uti­lized a broad spec­trum of case deci­sions, news accounts, books, and schol­ar­ly jour­nals in assem­bling the con­tent. Funding for the project was pro­vid­ed by grants from the Soros Foundation and the Columbia Foundation.

We hope you will give us your feed­back after using this cur­ricu­lum and/​or the web­site. It will be updat­ed peri­od­i­cal­ly to reflect both devel­op­ments in the death penal­ty and sug­ges­tions for bet­ter ways of engag­ing stu­dents in this explo­ration. Also, our inter­est is to have the web­site con­tent be as accu­rate and cur­rent as pos­si­ble. If, in review­ing the mate­ri­als, you come across errors or out-of-date infor­ma­tion, please call them to our attention.

Teacher Guides

We have pro­vid­ed two sam­ple units plans to max­i­mize the use of the site. Each of the units involves an exten­sive amount of group work, sim­u­la­tions, per­sua­sive and indi­vid­ual essay writ­ing, and class par­tic­i­pa­tion. These units have also been designed with the cur­rent NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies) Standards in mind. They are designed to be com­pre­hen­sive two-week units, but ele­ments of either unit may be used in your cur­rent plans. Alternative units, or sug­ges­tions and com­ments on the exist­ing units, are encouraged.

Awards and Recognition

The Death Penalty Information Center’s high school cur­ricu­lum site has received numer­ous awards and recog­ni­tions, for edu­ca­tion­al val­ue, high qual­i­ty con­tent, and high qual­i­ty site design.

The site was reviewed and select­ed as a mem­ber of the GEM Gateway Consortium of Internet-based edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als, received a 5 star rat­ing from Pacific Bell’s Blue Web’n Library of Educational Resources, as well as a Lightspan StudyWeb award, and Awesome Library Editor’s Choice recog­ni­tion as being among the top 5% of edu­ca­tion­al sites on the web, and a Busy Educator Award.

Contacting Us

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), in con­junc­tion with the Education Development Center, has also devel­oped a free, online col­lege-lev­el cur­ricu­lum on the death penal­ty, Capital Punishment in Context.