1. Students should learn from this lesson that the freedoms discussed in the first lesson of this unit were secured by the creation of a stable, successful form of national government. Much of the sophisticated concepts associated with the Constitution are introduced in the CROSSROADS middle-school curriculum; the purpose of this lesson is to explain the basic premises of this document.
2. Many resources might be used to explain the efforts of the Founding Fathers as they labored in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution. Students will enjoy the information found in
Shh! We're Writing the Constitution
, by Jean Fritz, which focuses on the people involved in the Constitutional Convention. Another good resource for students is
Our Independence and Constitution
, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Students should be able to recognize the contributions made by key individuals such as James Madison.
3. Additional resources should be used to explain the format of the Constitution and the government it created. Although an easy reading book, Peter Spier's
We The People: The Constitution of the United States of America
is a clear introd uction to this topic;
Our Constitution
, by Linda Johnson, is also very accessible. Students should understand the three branches of government, the system of checks and balances, and the process of amending the Constitution. These are diffi cult concepts that often require direct teacher instruction, but are necessary to understand future CROSSROADS units and lessons.