Step 1: Initial Considerations
Before you try to start a Street Law course at your school, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there a need? Are students not learning enough about law in their other courses?
- What is the process for starting/piloting a new course? Can I get it approved?
- Is there a demand? Are there enough interested students who will sign up for and take the course?
- Do I have the resources? Do I have the time and does my school system have the money to develop a new course and purchase texts and other supplies?
- Would a Street Law course meet my school’s curricular needs? Are there any specialized topics I might need to add in order to meet that need?
Step 2: Determine the Best Structure for Your Course
Every Street Law course is different. They vary based on the interests of the teachers and the students, the resources available, curricular goals, and assessments.
In most school districts, law is taught as a one-semester elective. There is no prescription for how to structure a one semester course, though typically a semester is broken into four or five major units of study. Below are some units that are commonly covered. Keep in mind that it would be impossible and ill-advised to try to tackle all of these topics; just pick three or four that you think are important.
- Introduction to law and the legal system (defining law, lawmaking, advocacy, settling disputes, the court system, and lawyers)
- Criminal law and juvenile justice (crime in the United States, introduction to criminal law, crimes against a person, property crimes, defenses, criminal justice processes, proceedings before trial, trials, sentencing and corrections, juvenile justice, and law and terrorism)
- Torts (introduction to civil wrongs, intentional torts, negligence, strict liability, and public policy)
- Consumer and housing law (contracts, warranties, credit and other financial services, deceptive sales practices, smart consumerism, cars, and housing)
- Family law (marriage, parents and children, foster care and adoption, separation, divorce, custody, and government support)
- Individual rights and liberties (introduction to constitutional law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, expression in special places, freedom of religion, due process, right to privacy, discrimination, rights and responsibilities in the workplace, and immigration law)
In some cases teachers create a two-semester course, where the second semester course can either stand alone or build upon the first. For example, the first semester could be about basic principles of law, an overview of the justice system, criminal law, and/or constitutional law. The second semester could be about family law, contracts, housing, workplace law, or conflict resolution. Alternatively, the second semester could take the first semester topics more in-depth. If that is the kind of course you want to teach, you may need to establish prerequisites for semester two.
One advantage to separating the courses (with no prerequisites) is either course can be offered in either semester, which gives more students the chance to take law.
Sample Syllabi
View sample syllabi provided by the following law teachers in our network.
- Christopher Busse, social studies teacher, O'Fallon Township High School, O'Fallon, IL
- Stephanie Doane, social studies teacher, Casco Bay High School, Portland, ME
- Janet Emond, social studies teacher, Downers Grove North High School, Downers Grove, IL
- Andrea Fazel, social studies teacher, DCP El Primero High School, San Jose, CA
- Cathy Ruffing, former social studies teacher, Centreville High School, Clifton, VA
Step 3: Develop and Refine Course Content
What Legal Topics Best Meet the Needs of Your Students?
Each school has a unique student population. The Street Law textbook includes a wide array of legal topics that you can choose from in order to best meet the needs of your students. For example, if your student population includes a significant number of first or second-generation American students, you might include a unit of study on immigration law. If your school emphasizes the performing arts, a unit of study on intellectual property rights would be a great addition.
Many Street Law instructors also include legal topics that might be controversial to offer multiple points of view or perspectives. Controversial legal topics can draw student interest and broaden understanding and tolerance. At the same time, teachers should strive to use materials that provide a balanced view of the judicial and political system. Choosing topics that strike a balance between controversy and impartiality can create a classroom environment that promotes thoughtful and considerate discourse.
Finally, when choosing legal topics, issues, and cases for your Street Law class, it's essential to be considerate of the unique demographic and social needs of your student population. Some topics might evoke too much controversy. With some cases, students might struggle to relate to the central issue of the case. Ultimately, you are in the best position to know what is best for your students, and the Street Law curriculum offers tremendous topic choice and flexibility.
What Skills Do You Want Your Students to Gain?
Picture a stereotypical law school class with a professor lecturing to an auditorium full of students scrambling to take notes. These law students are likely bleary-eyed from attempting to read tomes of law the night before. Law courses for high school students should look, sound, and feel extremely different.
Best practices in law-related education indicate that teachers should use interactive strategies to help students learn content and skills. As you plan your course, think about what you want students to be able to do as a result of your course.
Your law course can be a vehicle for teaching many higher-level skills that will help your students succeed in many parts of their life. Some of these critical school, work, and civic life skills include the following:
- developing questions
- planning inquiries
- gathering and evaluating sources
- developing claims and using evidence
- communicating
- taking informed action
- collaborating
- problem-solving
- reasoning
- persuading
- deliberating
There are many ways to teach these skills—some of the teaching methods most commonly associated with law courses are mock trials, moot courts, mock hearings, legislative simulations, negotiations, case studies, and deliberations.
A Street Law course can also help your students develop and demonstrate skills expressed in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Specifically, students in a Street Law course practice the following standards-based skills:
- analyzing seminal U.S. documents of historical significance
- citing strong and thorough textual evidence
- discussing using evidence from primary and secondary texts
- developing reasoning and argument using that evidence
- assessing the validity of claims from a text
- responding thoughtfully to comments, claims and evidence made on all sides of an issue
What Teaching Materials Will You Use?
Whether you intend to use the Street Law text, develop your own curricular materials, or take a hybrid approach, Street Law can help.
We are a global leader in the development of law-related curricula and have more than 40 years of experience creating interactive, student-centered lesson plans on law, democracy, human rights, crime prevention, conflict resolution, and youth advocacy.
We offer a variety of curricula, including packages or stand-alone lesson plans. Many of our materials are free.
Highlighted below are some of our most popular materials. We also encourage you to explore our Free Resource Library. It houses teaching activities and methods, case summaries, mock trials, moot courts, and articles. It is organized by topic, audience, and type.
- Textbook: Street Law: A Course in Practical Law is a textbook that is used in high schools across the country. It's currently in its 10th edition and is published and distributed by McGraw Hill Education. (All purchasing requests and requests for sample copies must go through McGraw Hill Education.)
- Landmark Supreme Court cases: In partnership with the Supreme Court Historical Society, Street Law publishes LandmarkCases.org, a website devoted to interactive teaching materials about 17 landmark Supreme Court cases.
- SCOTUS case summaries: Our free resource library contains scores of classroom-ready Supreme Court case summaries from recent terms. Our SCOTUS in the Classroom resource spotlights the most teachable cases from each Term, and encourages teachers to hold moot courts of the case the same weeks that the Supreme Court hears arguments, giving students the opportunity to follow discussion and analysis in the news and listen to or read a transcript of the actual oral arguments at the Court.
- Mock trials: Our Classroom Guide to Mock Trials is a comprehensive free resource that prepares teachers to conduct a mock trial in their classrooms/schools. In addition, we offer free mock trials developed by Georgetown Street Law Program.
- Moot courts: Our Classroom Guide to Moot Courts is a 10-lesson-plan guide that supports teachers in implementing moot courts in their classrooms. The lessons help set the stage for a successful moot court experience—from understanding the appellate process to granting cert to judicial opinion writing to evaluation tools.
- Deliberations: Street Law has developed a robust collection of free Deliberation resources. Deliberations allow teachers to help students cooperatively discuss contested political issues by carefully considering multiple perspectives and searching for common ground.
Step 4: Who Will Take the Course?
In many cases, students and teachers who love government also love law. So it is natural for teachers who are developing a law course to market it to students in their government classes.
It is important to share your vision for the course with your guidance department. In some schools, counselors only steer kids to law classes who have already been in trouble with the law, so they can get to know the system from the other side. In other schools, teachers have created a culture that only the top, most advanced students take the course, so they can eventually enroll in a prestigious law school.
It is our view that robust law classes should have a combination of students with different backgrounds, skills, and experiences with the law. They can learn from each other and will benefit from understanding law in their lives. Furthermore, our democracy depends on all people understanding law and participating fully in civic life.
How Can You Recruit Them?
While many teachers would love to start a Street Law class, we know it will not happen unless enough students register for the class. School administrators typically cannot support any elective course that only has a few students enrolled (though some may support a pilot year. )
To create a buzz about the class, you might consider hanging posters up at school; using the schools listserv, newspaper, and social media outlets; and making announcements over the public address system or via video announcements to let students know there could be a new course at your school and whom they should see for more information. Your marketing materials could include field trips you anticipate offering, special activities like mock trials you might include in the course, special content experts you intend to bring to your class, and opportunities students might have to shadow someone who works in the field of law. Another form of outreach is to set up a table in the cafeteria or in a busy part of the school with a sign promoting the course and where you can sit to answer questions. In some schools, in the weeks prior to registration, teachers who offer elective courses spend a few minutes in their colleagues' required classes telling students about the elective options.
Step 5: Strategies for Effective Teaching and Learning
Teacher Professional Development
Street Law works directly with state departments of education, school districts, and schools to design custom teacher professional development around topics related to law, government, current contested issues, and interactive teaching strategies. Learn about
Learn more about how Street Law can help with your teacher professional development needs.
The United States has a rich network of civic education organizations that also provide excellent professional development. Check out the Civic Renewal Network to learn more about the offerings of other organizations in our field.
Bringing the Legal Community into Your Classroom
Involving people from your community can really bring the law to life for your students. It also helps you, the teacher, accurately convey information about content areas that are complex or constantly changing (e.g., immigration law and intellectual property law).
Community resource people can be used to
- Make the lessons come alive by sharing firsthand experiences and real-world examples
- Answer students' questions
- Provide technical assistance in implementing activities such as mock trials and moot courts
- Serve as positive adult role models
Additionally, the presence of lawyers or other professionals in the classroom serves as a powerful message to young people that there are adults in positions of power and authority that do care about them, their thoughts, opinions, and futures.
Consider inviting some of the following community members into your Street Law classroom:
- Lawyers, judges, and paralegals: At nearly any point within a Street Law course, legal professionals could add relevant insight to complex legal topics. They could help students better understand case law, expand on concepts such as due process or civil liability, or simply share what they do day-to-day. Many large law firms have already established pro bono community outreach programs that support classroom visits.
- Lawmakers: Lawmaking is a complex process that can vary depending on the location and level. Inviting legislators, whether federal, state, or local, into your classroom can help students better understand the complexities and realities of this process. Law makers are often looking for ways to connect with their constituents (or future constituents) and a classroom visit can create a learning opportunity for both your students and the law maker. At the local or state level you could contact the legislator directly, however, at the federal level you may need to work through a staff member to organize a visit.
- Law students: If you have a law school in your community, consider including law students as a potential legal resource. Street Law supports law school programs across the country that connect law students with local classrooms and community settings to teach about law.
Keep in mind, simply bringing a community resource person into a classroom is not sufficient to create a positive learning experience. You must work to ensure that the experience is a positive one for you, your students, and the special guest. Without proper preparation, resource people may be unable to empower the students. Make sure you take the opportunity to prepare your visitor. Share the objective of the class and how the visit fits into the overall unit goals. Help them understand that lecturing should be kept to a minimum and help them develop a way to effectively engage students in their area of expertise. Finally, give students the opportunity to debrief the visit and connect to past or future learning.
Bringing Your Students into the Legal Community
Taking the opportunity to bring students into your legal community can promote an even deeper understanding of how our legal, law enforcement, and judicial systems function. Making these connections can take a number of forms that may include the following:
- Field trips: Consider bringing students to your local courts to view arraignments, to the police station for a tour of the facilities, or your state legislature or town council for an up close look at lawmaking. All of these trips outside the classroom would require you to schedule a visit. Many legal institutions have clerks who can help plan and prepare for the field experience. Also, check with your school to make sure the resources exist to support outside field trips.
- Job shadows or internships: Many school districts are recognizing the benefits of creating job shadow or internship opportunities for students within the school year. These opportunities provide students with the chance to consider (or discount) possible career pathways. Institutions, such as your state legislature, may have established internship programs. However, if you reach out to other organizations, such as local law firms or law enforcement agencies, they may be willing to discuss the possibility of creating job shadow or internship experiences. While liability may be an issue for some organizations, others might focus more on the overall benefits of such an arrangement, especially if employment is a need.
- Service-learning projects: Many school districts also have established service-learning projects and structures to support the creation of such programs. Many service-learning projects have a legal theme or bend and could become part of your class. If your school supports service-learning for students, it could become a natural part of any Street Law classroom.
Best Practices in Law-related Education
One important resource for any teacher planning a law course is the following compilation of the best practices in law-related education. Keep these practices and principles in mind as you prepare to teach.
You can also use these best practices to “justify” the new course to your school’s administration. Show them the research about “what works” and how you intend to follow it. As your course takes off, you should refer back to these principles and practices frequently to reflect upon how you can improve your strategies and course.
- Lessons focus on essential knowledge and skills. Appropriate knowledge includes civil, criminal, administrative, and constitutional themes; practical information about the law and public policy; and concepts underlying a constitutional democracy. Skills include critical thinking, decision-making, problem solving, communication, cooperation, and participation. Legal and policy issues should be analyzed in depth.
- Selected issues and materials present multiple points of view or perspectives. Materials are selected so that they provide a balanced view of the judicial system and other aspects of the political system. Controversial issues should be discussed often, as it motivates student interest and broadens understanding and tolerance.
- A sufficient quantity of instruction is provided. While “sufficient quantity” is not a precisely defined term, it is important that students have ample opportunities to practice skills and gain confidence in defending their points of view and making presentations.
- Interactive teaching strategies, particularly strategies that foster true student-to-student interaction are the heart of the lesson. Other characteristics of good instruction are sharing outcomes with students, drawing on students’ existing knowledge, giving students appropriate time to answer questions, and involving as many students as possible in all aspects of the class.
- Opportunities for students to interact with community resource people are offered often. The community resource person is well prepared and integrated into the interactive lesson. The content presented by the community resource person is part of the course content and she or he clarifies the law and procedures that directly arise from the lesson.
- Administrators are actively involved in providing classroom teachers the support they need. Teachers should feel that the school director and education officials support their endeavors. The administrators must be able to address questions raised by family members, other teachers, or the community about the Street Law program. Involvement of administrators can also serve to reduce the gap between school policies, rules, and ideas about justice that may be generated in the class.
- Networks to support teacher innovation are available through joint planning sessions, training sessions, and social events. Strengthen teachers’ commitments to use interactive methods and practical legal information. The involvement of more than one teacher from a site in training helps to enhance the Street Law program.
Course Enhancements
Enhancing your law curriculum with law-themed clubs and activities can deepen the experience for your Street Law students. They can also provide you with ways to bring law-related education to a larger audience and generate additional interest in your course.
- Law clubs: A law club, just like any other academic club, would grant students the opportunity to dabble in legal topics outside the school day. Time could be devoted to keeping up-to-date on legal developments, discussion or debate of legal topics, after-school trips to locations of interest such as courtrooms or legislative sessions, or connecting with legal professionals. This could be especially helpful for students who are thinking of a legal career.
- Mock trial teams: Mock trial teams have grown in popularity in the last few decades. As a result there are now many resources to support the formation of a team at your school. One place to start is with your state bar association. Many state bar associations have mock trial team contacts and resources in support of local and state mock trial competitions. Winners of state mock trial competitions are invited to compete at the National High School Mock Trial Championship. For a comprehensive list of state mock trial coordinators, visit the National High School Mock Trial Championship website.
- Law Day Activities: Law day is celebrated on May 1 of every year. The American Bar Association's Division for Public Education organizes the event by selecting a theme and providing teaching resources. Law Day provides a great opportunity for teachers and students to reflect on the role of law in our society.