Students in an eighth grade classroom call out to close all borders to the United States and shoot down illegal immigrants on sight. This paper examines two curricular responses to the violence in the language of this group of fourteen-year-olds in relationship to the cultivation of civility. Civility is often defined as good manners or polite behavior. This is a shallow definition in comparison to how French philosopher, Balibar, develops a conception of civility closely related to the word's Latin root of civilitas or citizenship. For Balibar (2016, 2001), civility is a set of concrete practices and conditions that make collective participation in democracy possible. These conditions rely on the recognition of human rights, or at minimum, the right to have rights, and on an understanding of shared fate. Drawing on the analysis of the curricular responses, specific criteria are proposed for pedagogy that cultivates Balibar's robust sense of civility.