The Bill of Rights, As They Matter Today

Class Length: 1 Class Meeting

Objectives:

The students will be able to:

  1. List the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights
  2. Apply the rights to their daily lives.
  3. Use the newspaper to identify rights currently being protected or questioned by the Bill of Rights.

Materials:

-Newspapers

-Butcher paper

-Copy of the First Ten Amendments (cite referenced)

Procedures:

All students will individually list the rights guaranteed by the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution.

The students will be separated into groups of three or four people, each having a piece of butcher paper and draw the category headings:

  1. Rights in School
  2. Rights at Home
  3. Rights in Public.

The students will then list ten rights for each column, matching their list to the corresponding Constitutional Amendment. Groups must work together to come to a consensus, and avoid asking the teacher for clarification of amendment language or intended meaning.

Groups will present their list to the class.

Using newspapers, students will locate current news articles and stories that involve the Bill of Rights. Students will identify how one or more of the amendments are cited and whether the rights are being violated or supported.

Students will decide on the Amendment that is most important to their lives. Depending on their choice, students will create and act out scenarios to demonstrating how their rights can be infringed upon. Scenario examples:

-You are with your friends all deciding on what to do for the evening. You have a variety of options: dinner, bowling, a movie, the golf driving range, etc. One student is restricted the right to free speech (Amendment I) and cannot speak during the scene, and therefore his/her opinion is ignored.

-You just became the night manager at convenient store in a rough neighbor with a high crime rate—there have been a number of robberies, shootings, and other criminal activity. You want to be able to protect yourself during the late hours of the evening when most of the crime occur, but you cannot purchase or own any weapon (Amendment II). Unfortunately, one evening, your store becomes the target for a robbery.

References:

International Information Programs (2007). The bill of rights: Amendments 1-10 of the

Constitution. InfoUSA: Documents and Writings. Retrieved November 8th, 2007

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