Formats
A handful of formats cover almost everything a teacher is likely to want, and they are not interchangeable. Each one puts students in a different kind of room, and each has a single structural element that does most of the teaching. That element survives a change of topic, which is why it, and not the subject matter, is the reason to pick one format over another.
They divide first into domestic bodies, where students sit as Americans deciding an American question, and international bodies, where each student speaks for a government. That is usually the first decision, because it follows from the course. Below each group is a table giving the room, the element, the shortest version still worth running, and then a section on each format. Competitive Simulations has the associations, the dates and what each one costs.
Domestic bodies
Students sit as members of an American institution deciding an American question. Nobody represents a country, so no student has to hold a foreign government’s brief, and the material is usually already in the course.
| Format | The room | What does the teaching | Shortest honest version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model Congress | A committee marking up a real bill | The vote on the rule comes first, so the fight is settled before anyone debates the substance | Two sessions, one on the rule and the markup, one on the floor |
| Model Town Assembly | A planning board hearing one real application | Measuring that application against the written criteria in an ordinance, rather than against what anybody prefers | One session, one application. The cheapest format here and the one to try first |
| Mock Trial | A trial on a stipulated case file | Not what you can argue but what the finder of fact is permitted to hear | Two sessions, direct and cross on one witness, with an objection budget |
| Moot Court | Appellate argument on a certified question | The facts are closed, so the argument is the law and the standard of review | One session, one issue, two sides, ten minutes each |
Model Congress
Students sit as members of a legislature, take a real bill through committee, amend it, and carry whatever survives to a floor vote.
The best twelve minutes in the design is the vote on the rule, and it comes first. The rule decides which amendments are even in order, so by the time anyone rises to debate the substance the outcome has largely been settled by a procedural vote most students did not think mattered. Watching that land is worth more than any amount of explanation about how a bill becomes a law, and students who have sat through it never again read a procedural fight as a sideshow.
Two sessions is the honest minimum, one for the rule and the markup and one for the floor, because collapsing them removes the gap in which students lobby each other. For AP US Government this is the strongest fit on the list, and For AP Teachers sets out which unit it serves. The circuit includes Harvard Model Congress, the YMCA Youth and Government programs that culminate in a state conference, the Junior State of America, and the American Legion Boys State and ALA Girls State programs.
Model Town Assembly
Students sit as a planning board, a zoning board, a town council or a school board, with one real application in front of them and members of the public signed up to speak.
What does the teaching is that the board has to measure the application against the written criteria in an ordinance, not against what anybody in the room would prefer. Students arrive wanting to vote their opinion and find that the question before them is narrower and harder: does this application meet these five standards. Several discover that they have to approve something they dislike, which is the most useful hour a civics class can spend. It helps that the constituents are three feet away and are classmates who will still be there next week.
This is the cheapest format on the list and the one to try first. It needs one session, one agenda item, no association, no travel and no materials beyond a staff report you write yourself, and it can be built out of your own town’s public records. Use a real application if you can get the packet, because the specificity is what makes students take it seriously. There is no competitive circuit, which is not a drawback: it is the format most likely to be run well in an ordinary classroom with no budget at all.
Mock Trial
Students try a case at the trial level from a stipulated case file: fixed facts, witness statements, exhibits, and a judge. Both sides work from the same packet.
Students arrive believing that a trial is won by argument. What actually governs it is what the finder of fact is permitted to hear. An objection sustained is a fact the jury never gets, and the gap between what a student believes about the case and what that student can put in front of the room is the whole lesson. It is uncomfortable and it is correct.
A hard objection budget, three per side, teaches more than a whole trial does, because it forces students to decide which exclusions actually matter. Two sessions is enough: one direct and one cross on a single witness, with a one-page evidence sheet rather than the full rules. Mock trial and moot court are not substitutes for one another, and the difference matters for AP teachers in particular. The high school governing body is the National High School Mock Trial Championship, with Empire Mock Trial running open invitationals; college teams compete under the American Mock Trial Association, whose rulebook and judge materials are public and are the best artifact for showing students how they are actually scored.
Moot Court
Students argue an appellate case on a certified question. There are no witnesses and no new facts, only a closed record, a question of law, and a bench that interrupts.
Because the facts are closed, the argument is about the law and the standard of review, and the standard of review is the hinge almost every student misses on a first attempt. Whether the court asks if the decision below was wrong, or only whether it was unreasonable, settles most cases before anyone reaches the merits. This is a genuinely alien discipline for students, and it is the entire reason to run it rather than a trial. The bench makes it harder still: a prepared argument survives roughly ninety seconds, and everything after that is answering questions while finding the way back to the point you came to make.
One session is enough: one issue, two sides, ten minutes each, with you and two students on the bench. Watch the names. Three separate organizations run moot court in the United States under nearly identical titles. The American Moot Court Association is intercollegiate, while the National Academy of Moot Court and the High School Moot Court Association are both high school bodies and are not the same organization as each other. Check which one a conference belongs to before registering a team. The format is domestic here because the case is American, but moot court exists internationally too, and the international competitions argue public international law before an invented tribunal.
International bodies
Each student speaks for a government rather than for themselves, which is the discipline these three share and the thing that makes them harder to run well. A student who argues their own view has not done the assignment, however well they argue it.
| Format | The room | What does the teaching | Shortest honest version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model United Nations | Member states in committee, working toward a resolution | The drafting obligation: a delegate who gives a fine speech and is not on a working paper has accomplished nothing | One session, one committee, one short resolution |
| Model European Union | Ministers and heads of government negotiating across several files at once | One government holds one position through all of them: a finance minister cannot take a line his own environment minister will have to pay for | One session, two linked files, one government per pair of students |
| Model Arab League | The Council of the League | A majority decision binds only the states that vote for it, which turns the vote from a formality into the most interesting moment of the day | One session, one resolution, the voting rule explained first |
Model United Nations
Students are assigned member states and sit in committee with a topic in front of them. They speak from a speakers list, negotiate in caucus, and the session ends with a document that either passes or does not.
The drafting obligation is what makes this format teach. Nothing counts until it is written down and sponsored, so the student who speaks beautifully and never joins a working paper ends the day with nothing, while the quiet student who collected three signatures ends it with a resolution. That is a hard lesson to deliver in a lecture and an easy one to deliver here, and it is why Model UN rewards a different student than a debate round does.
In one class period you can run a single committee on a narrow question and still get the drafting problem, provided the topic is specific enough that a resolution has to say something. Publish the bloc positions in advance and spend the last fifteen minutes on whether the text that passed would actually do anything. The circuit is the largest of any format here: NHSMUN, Harvard Model UN, NAIMUN and BMUN on the high school side, and the American Model United Nations at the college level.
Model European Union
Students represent member-state governments in the Council of the European Union, usually with the Commission and sometimes the European Parliament alongside, negotiating real legislative proposals.
What does the teaching is that a government has to hold one position across every file at once. A student who concedes on the budget to win on environment finds that the concession is still there when the budget file comes back, and a finance minister cannot take a line that his own environment minister will have to pay for. Running several files simultaneously, rather than one at a time, is what produces this, and it is the single design decision that most determines whether a Model EU session works. The voting rules reinforce it: because qualified majority turns on both member states and population, students learn to count before they argue, and discover that the blocking minority is the real object of the negotiation.
A one-session version works with two linked files, one government per pair of students, and the voting weights posted where everyone can see them. Refuse to let anyone speak for themselves rather than for a government; that discipline is the point. The European Union Delegation to the United States keeps the best hub of American Model EU programs, and Pitt’s European Studies Center runs the most established high school event. The Mid-Atlantic European Union Simulation meets in Washington each November for college teams from eight institutions, with embassy briefings as part of the week.
Model Arab League
Students represent member states of the League of Arab States across several councils, each with its own portfolio, under a published set of parliamentary rules. The National Council on US-Arab Relations runs the program and writes the handbook.
The element that does the teaching is a voting rule with no equivalent in the other formats: a majority decision binds only the states that voted for it. A state that votes no is not outvoted, it is simply not bound. That changes what a negotiation is for. Winning a majority is no longer winning, because a resolution that passes over five objections commits only the states that wanted it anyway, and students who want their decision to mean anything have to go and get the holdouts. It is the fastest way to show a class the difference between a decision and an agreement.
Explain the voting rule before anything else, cut the procedure to about six motions, and put the short form on the wall. NCUSAR publishes its own procedure guide, a quick guide for students coming from Model UN, and a blank resolution template, all free, and Preparing Students links the official procedure video. The national high school conference meets in North Bethesda, Maryland, and regional conferences run through the year.
Reacting to the Past is a different kind of thing
Every format above is a body you design and run. You choose the question, write the roles, set the rules and chair the room. Reacting to the Past is a published curriculum: somebody else wrote the roles, the private objectives, the primary sources and the instructor’s manual, the students run the sessions, and your job is to advise and grade. There is no circuit, nothing to travel to and no association to join.
It is neither domestic nor international, because the room is a historical body at a real turning point and the games range from the Constitutional Convention to the Security Council in 1994. It also asks more preparation than anything else here and returns more when it works, and a single published game can run from one session to fifteen, so it can take over a course rather than fit inside one. Reacting to the Past has the games, what the materials cost, and the research.
Choosing one
The course usually settles domestic or international for you. After that, pick the format whose structural element is the thing you actually want students to learn, not the one whose subject matter matches your course title most closely. An American government course that wants students to feel the weight of constituents is better served by a town assembly than by a congressional markup, and a course that wants them to understand why procedure is never neutral is better served by the markup.
Then run the shortest version in the table before you run anything longer. Every format here fails the same way, which is a room full of students who do not know what they are allowed to do. Preparing Students is about preventing that, Class-Based Simulations has the eleven steps and seven complete session designs, and The Debrief is where the learning actually gets consolidated once the room empties.
