Lesson Plan #:AELP-GOV0033

Reorganizing the Bill of Rights

An Educator's Reference Desk Lesson Plan

Submitted by: Scott Wallace
School or Affiliation: South Valley Middle School, Platteville,CO.
Endorsed by: These lesson plans are the result of the work of the teachers who have attended the Columbia Education Center's Summer Workshop. CEC is a consortium of teacher from 14 western states dedicated to improving the quality of education in the rural, western, United States, and particularly the quality of math and science Education. CEC uses Big Sky Telegraph as the hub of their telecommunications network that allows the participating teachers to stay in contact with their trainers and peers that they have met at the Workshops.

Date: May 1994

Grade Level(s): 8

Subject(s):

Description:

This lesson is a culminating activity to be used at the end of a unit on the Bill of Rights. It allows my students to become aware of the main ideas and importance of the remaining 16 amendments not covered in class. I have used this lesson as an individual writing assignment, but find it much more effective and fun used as an in-class activity.

Goal:

The purpose of the activity is to ask students to look critically at the 26 amendments. Are some more important than others? Can we live without some of them? Do some of them address similar issues?

Objectives: By the end of the activity, the students will;

  1. be able to identify the topics of amendments not covered in class.
  2. Compare and contrast topics covered in the 26 amendments and group them according to similar topics.
  3. Evaluate amendments in terms of importance to their daily lives or to the everyday function of the government.

Materials: textbook that contains all 26 amendments.

Procedure:

  1. After covering the first ten amendments in class in previous lessons, inform the students that they will be role-playing a Constitutional Convention that has been charged with reorganizing the 26 amendments back to 10.
  2. Break class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Tell each group that they may reorganize in any way that they want. They may delete amendments that currently exist, combine amendments that have similar topics, or introduce new amendments. Allow groups at least one class period to work on their task.
  3. After the small groups have completed their task, bring the class back together. Each group then introduces their proposal.
  4. The class is then given time for informal debate and discussion over the various proposals. At this point the large group must formally debate and vote on the amendments they want to keep.

Tying it All Together:

After the students finish their debate and vote, open class up for discussion over their feelings as to how things went. You will find that their will have been quite a bit of disagreement as to what's important and what isn't.