About This Lesson
This is a lesson regarding the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Listed below is the presentation, the guided notes and the activity worksheet along with the answer key. Students will learn how the Constitution was created and what rights they have with the Bill of Rights. The bolded red words in the power-point will be either fill in the blank or regular questions in their notes. Students will also be asked to define their vocabulary. There are some curveballs thrown in to see who is truly paying attention (such as the wrong thing being highlighted).
The activity will be regarding the Bill of Rights. Students will be split up into group of three were one will be judge, the other prosecutor and the last will be the defendant.
The students will be given a worksheet with five scenarios, they will read the facts about the case. The first thing to be done is to determine what rights are being discussed in the case. Then the defendant will argue why his rights were violated, the prosecutor will argue why his rights were NOT violated. The judge will then decide if any constitutional rights were violated. After the students are done, you will open a classroom discussion about everyone's ruling on each case. You in turn will then explain if they got the case right. Most of the cases are actual cases from the SCOTUS, including their rulings. The answer key will give you what the courts ruled and why.
