Resources and Information for Teachers
While the Congressional Essay Contest can be assigned as a standalone opportunity or lesson, successful applicants will likely have deeper background knowledge on the origins, history, and functioning of American Constitutional Democracy.
Educators are encouraged to present the essay competition as a culmination of a longer study of the topic in civics, US government, or American history classes.
How to engage your students
To help identify resources to support your work in this area, we encourage you to check out sample resources:
Resources
Selecting the winning essay
Depending on how a District Office decides to administer a program, students may submit essays directly to the office, or a school may select one winning essay to submit.
Should a District Office prefer submissions directly from a school, each school can administer their own process for selecting that essay.
We encourage schools to select winners through a committee of evaluators which can include high school seniors or student council representatives not participating in the contest, educators, representatives of town or county government, librarians, and other community leaders.