The terrain of civics education is vast and divided. While the literature points to the necessity of both the knowing and the doing of citizenship, much of the teaching and learning of civics in our current context fails to account for the complexities of this tension. Our study attempts to bridge the divide between transmissive (knowledge) and transformational (engagement) civics education approaches and is guided by the following research question: How do students, and teachers, come to think about citizenship after participating in an 8-week curriculum experience that privileges both civic knowledge and civic engagement? To do this, we fused elements of an action civics curriculum (The iEngage Civics Institute) with the components of a traditional civics curriculum (Hillsdale College’s 1776 Curriculum). Our inquiry followed the methodological structure and assumptions associated with a qualitative multiple case study. We were interested in an in-depth understanding of how the study’s participants (three inservice teachers, three preservice teachers, and 50+ students located across three different school sites and primary grade levels) came to think about citizenship after experiencing a curriculum bridging the divide between transmission and transformation. We relied on the three sources of evidence associated with case study design (documents or artifacts, semi-structured interviews, and observations) to construct a rich description of each case. While transmissive and transformational approaches appear oppositional, we highlight the necessary tension and complementary nature of these approaches. We discuss how a civics curriculum that embeds both knowledge and engagement cultivates students who are well-versed in understanding civic structures and the foundational principles undergirding these structures, while simultaneously encouraging youth to view themselves as necessary and influential civic participants who can affect change in their schools and communities.