Help

Help for teachers

What to expect over a semester

How long it takes

The setup itself is about twenty minutes, and most of what makes it worth a full period is the talking: who your Three are, why the building decides them, and what each group is looking for in the twelve. Then one class period a week for as long as you want to run it. A full semester is about eighteen periods, roughly a fifth of a one semester course, and running it for six weeks instead costs nothing: no part of it expires.

What it covers

Congress, and how a bill moves, read from the record as it happens: introduction and referral, committees and hearings, the floor, roll call votes, cosponsors, the two chambers, and what becomes of most bills. It does not cover the other two branches, a Constitution unit, or a state civics test.

Two ways to run it

Spread across the semester, one period a week, as your legislative branch unit. Or massed into the weeks you already teach Congress, with the record still filling every weekday beside it. Both work, and no lesson assumes either.

If you miss a week

Nothing breaks. The record keeps filling every weekday morning, a badge stays earned once earned, and the lesson waits. Pick it up where you left off.

When Congress is quiet

It will happen, and the page says so rather than showing an empty table. Across the six finished Congresses, October of an election year is the quietest stretch that lands in a school term: about one member of Congress in 10 had anything on their own bills in a typical week, against about one in 4 in an October of an odd year. August is quieter still, and school is out. A quiet week is worth a period of its own, which is what A legislator's week is for.

What a student can do at the end

Read a bill's record and say where it stopped and who had it last.
Read an official roll call page and report a vote accurately, without judging it.
Tell a committee's vote to report a bill from a report it actually filed.
Say why two things that arrive together in the record are not proof that one caused the other.

Setting up a class

Once, on the projector, in about twenty minutes. Saving needs a free teacher account, so the class is on your dashboard and you never need to write the code down. You can pick before signing in; the picks wait for you.

Open the choosing page and add your school. Its two Senators and one Representative, the school's Three, fill in at the top of the table.
Name the class if you like ("Period 3"). Split the room into two groups.
Group 1 reads each Legislator Card out loud and decides Keep or Pass until it has kept three, then saves. Group 2 does the same.
You get one six-character code for both groups. It stays on your dashboard; students open the class page with it, no account needed.

Each week

Early every weekday morning, the site reads the public record and updates each group's badges. On Mondays it also adds the week's record for each group's legislators. Open the class page on the projector. The prep card under each group names the most recent bill and gives two or three questions to ask; each bill links to its own text on congress.gov. A lesson from the lessons page fits any week.

Reading the class page

The numbers

"Since choosing" counts only what happened after the class chose, each bill once: bills with any action, bills reported out of committee, bills that passed their chamber, and new cosponsors from the other party. Under each number is the same count for the school's Three. The numbers are never added into one total.

The badges

Each group has nine badges, in the order a bill moves toward law. Each badge shows two numbers: the left one, with a dashed edge, is the school's Three, the same for both groups; the right one is the group's own three. A badge turns to color when the group's own three reach it, usually on the first event, and for Reaches Across the Aisle at 10 new cosponsors from the other party. Once earned, a badge stays earned. Tap any badge for what earns it.

Words on the page

Every term the class page and the lessons use, defined once. The lessons print the ones they need on their handouts; this is the whole list.

Amendment: A change to the text of a measure. The second chamber can pass a measure with one, which sends it back to the first.
Any action: Anything recorded on a measure, from being introduced to a hearing or a vote.
Bill: A proposed law. H.R. in the House, S. in the Senate. If it passes both chambers in the same words and the President signs it, it becomes law.
Bill number: Issued in order as measures are introduced, so a low number usually means early in the two years. H.R. 1 to 20 are held back for the two House leaders.
Casework: A legislator's office helping someone from home with a federal agency, such as a passport, a veterans' benefit or a Social Security check.
Chair: The legislator who runs a committee and decides what it takes up. Every chair comes from the party holding that chamber.
Chamber: The House of Representatives or the Senate. A measure has to get through both.
Cloture: The Senate vote that ends debate so a decision can be reached. It usually needs three-fifths of all Senators.
Committee: A standing group of legislators responsible for one set of subjects. Almost every measure is sent to one, and most never leave it.
Committee record: The part of a measure's record listing what its committees did to it, including any hearing tied to it by name.
Companion bill: A measure introduced in one chamber that matches, or nearly matches, one in the other. Two companions are still two measures.
Concurrent resolution: Passed by both chambers but never signed and never law. Used for things Congress decides for itself, such as the yearly budget plan.
Conference committee: Members from both chambers appointed to write one text both will accept. Once usual for major bills, now rare.
Confirmation hearing: A Senate hearing questioning someone the President has nominated. The House holds none.
Congress (a numbered one): The two years a set of legislators serves, numbered in order. Every measure not finished when a Congress ends dies with it.
Consensus Calendar: A House list for measures their committee has not reported that hold 290 cosponsors for 25 legislative days. The Speaker must bring up at least one from it each week the House meets.
Constituent: Someone who lives in the state or district a legislator represents.
Cosponsor: A legislator who asks to add their name in support. There is no limit, and cosponsoring is not a vote.
Cosponsor from the other party: A cosponsor whose party letter, as the record prints it, is not the sponsor's.
"Dear Colleague" letter: A letter a sponsor sends to every other office asking them to cosponsor: here is the problem, here is what it does, will you join.
Delegate: The member who represents the District of Columbia or a territory. A Delegate can introduce bills and serve on committees. Puerto Rico's is called the Resident Commissioner.
Denominator: The bottom of a fraction: what you are dividing by. A rate is only as honest as what went into it.
Discharge petition: A way around the leaders: if 218 Representatives sign, a measure is forced out of committee and onto the floor. Rare.
Filibuster: Debating a measure at length to stop the Senate from reaching a decision on it.
Hearing: A committee meeting where witnesses answer questions on the record. Most hearings are about a subject, not about one measure.
Hold: A Senator telling their leader they would object. The leader usually does not make the request at all, so the objection never has to happen.
Joint resolution: Works like a bill and can become law. Used for narrow or urgent things, and for proposing an amendment to the Constitution, which goes to the states instead of the President.
Majority and minority: The party holding more seats in a chamber, and the other one. The majority holds every committee chair in that chamber.
Markup: The meeting where a committee goes through a measure and changes its text before deciding whether to send it on.
Measure: Anything Congress votes on: a bill or one of the three kinds of resolution.
Median: The middle value when every value is lined up in order. Half are above it and half below.
Not voting: How the record lists a legislator who did not answer. It never says why.
Ordered to be reported: The committee voted to send the measure to the full chamber. It has not left the committee yet.
Original cosponsor: A cosponsor listed on the day the measure was introduced, rather than added later.
Oversight hearing: A hearing checking how the executive branch is carrying out a law already passed.
Parliamentarian: The chamber's nonpartisan rules expert, who advises on which committee a measure belongs to.
Passed a chamber: The full House or Senate agreed to the measure. It still needs the other chamber and a signature.
Pocket veto: A measure dying because Congress adjourned before the President acted, so it could not be sent back.
Prefix: The letters in front of a number, such as H.R. or S.J.Res. They tell you which chamber it started in and what kind of measure it is.
Present: An answer that is neither yea nor nay. It counts as taking part without taking a side.
Public law: A bill that completed every step and was signed, or passed over a veto. It gets a number like 118-23: the Congress, then its order within it.
Recorded vote: A vote where every legislator's answer is written down and published. Also called a roll call. The Constitution guarantees one if a fifth of those present ask.
Referral: Sending a measure to the committee or committees whose subjects it touches. Almost always the same day it is introduced.
Reported out of committee: The committee filed its report, which is what actually sends the measure to the full chamber. The vote to do it is not enough on its own.
Resolving differences: What the two chambers do when they have passed different texts: send changes back and forth until they agree, or name a conference committee.
Rules Committee: The House committee that writes special rules, and so decides the terms on which a measure reaches the floor.
Simple resolution: Passed by one chamber alone and never law. Used for that chamber's own rules and business, including the special rules that set up a House debate.
Special rule: A short resolution from the Rules Committee setting the terms for one measure: how long the debate runs and which changes can be offered. The House votes on the rule before the measure.
Sponsor: The one legislator who introduced the measure. Only a legislator can, though the idea can come from anyone.
Subcommittee: A smaller group inside a committee, responsible for part of its subjects.
Suspension of the rules: The House's fast road: 40 minutes of debate, no changes from the floor, and two-thirds of those voting needed to pass.
The record: The government's own published account of what Congress did, with a number on every measure so anyone can look it up.
Two-thirds vote: Two of every three legislators voting, rather than a simple majority. Needed under suspension of the rules, and to pass a measure over a veto.
Unanimous consent: Agreeing to something because nobody objects. Most Senate bills pass this way, with no vote taken.
Veto: The President refusing to sign, which sends the measure back. Two-thirds of each chamber can pass it anyway.
Voice vote: Those in favor say "aye" and those against say "no", and the chair announces which side sounded larger. Nobody's vote is written down.
Witness: Someone a committee invites to answer questions, listed by name, title and the organization they speak for.
Yea and nay: The words the record uses for yes and no on a recorded vote.

Codes, names and accounts

A lost code

Signed in when you saved? Every class is on your dashboard. Not signed in? The code is the only link to the class, and nothing else identifies it, so we cannot look it up. Start a new class; it takes a few minutes, and its first count comes the next weekday morning.

Changing a name

Group names are picked from a list (a place and a word, or Surprise me); nobody types one, so a student's name can never end up on a public page. Change them on the choosing page, on the class page, or on your dashboard if you are signed in. The class name is typed by you; only the teacher who saved the class can change it, or anyone within two hours of saving one made without an account.

Who can see a class page

Anyone with the code. It holds no names of students or teachers, so treat the code like a handout, not a password.

Deleting

Signed in? Delete your account from the bottom of your dashboard, with or without your classes. Otherwise, email hello@congressclassroom.com with the code, and we delete it and reply when it is done.

Still stuck?

Email hello@congressclassroom.com. For a school's IT or privacy review, send them the technology page.

Last updated October 3, 2026.