Lesson Plans

Standards-Based Outcomes (MDE):

Social Studies:

III. Civic Perspective

Content Standard III, 2: All students will explain the meaning and origin of the ideas, including the core democratic values, expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other foundational documents of the United States.

2. Use the ideas in the Declaration of Independence to evaluate the conduct of citizens, political behavior, and the practices of government.

Content Standard III, 3: All students will describe the political and legal processes created to make decisions, seek consensus, and resolve conflicts in a free society.

2. Explain why people may agree on democratic values in the abstract but disagree when they are applied to specific situations.

3. Evaluate possible amendments to the Constitution.

Prior Knowledge:

Students must be familiar with the U.S. Constitution, including the amendments.
Students must have basic computer skills and be familiar with the Hyperstudio software program.

Cue Set:

The teacher presents students with hypothetical situations which could affect their personal life situations. Some examples include:
- You are told you have to practice a new religion which has recently been established by the government;
- The government forcibly confiscates the guns which your family uses for hunting;
- You are not allowed to vote in the next presidential election after your 18th birthday.
The students discuss their reactions to these and other situations which could personally affect them. The issues must relate to various items in the amendments to the Constitution.

Best Shot Instruction:

The teacher demonstrates/models an effective learning session using material already prepared in Hyperstudio.
Students create their own cards which include scanned images of at least one member (designated reader) of each group. They add the text of a predetermined amendment. The designated reader then reads the selected amendment. The student's reading of the passage is activated by using a button.
Students work in cooperative groups to analyze various newspaper articles containing current social issues which relate to amendments to the Constitution. Students are required to identify the amendments referred to in the articles and the reasoning processes which led to their decisions. (These news articles are predetermined by the teacher and reference specific amendments. The teacher will have already deleted the identification of the amendment in the text.)
After all the groups have completed their analyses within a designated time frame, the entire class reconvenes to compare/contrast them. (The groups work on the same news articles in their analyses.)

Reteaching and Enrichment:

The teacher spends additional class time reviewing the Constitution and any amendments as necessary. The instructor also uses other sources to explain or illustrate the practical application of the amendments to current social issues.
Students explore the amendments in real-life situations outside the classroom.

Review and Closure:

The teacher and students briefly review and summarize the articles which are analyzed by the groups as well as the connection between the articles and the amendments. The teacher and students provide final comments during this discussion.
Students write brief responses to one of the situations presented by the teacher at the beginning of the unit (Cue Set).

Assessment:

Students must correctly identify the amendment to the Constitution which applies to each article being analyzed. They must provide written explanations of the reasoning processes which led to their decisions. The reasoning processes must correlate with facts from each article as well as follow sound methods of reasoning.
Each student must independently complete a similar review sheet (not using Hyperstudio) to demonstrate his/her ability to correctly understand the contents of various amendments and how they relate to specific issues.

East Detroit Public Schools Lesson Design

East Detroit Public Schools
Lesson Design