Did you know that lawmakers have proposed more than 5,000 bills to amend the US Constitution in Congress? Your class learns intriguing facts about the process of choosing amendments. A variety of activities including before and after...

Consider how America's founding fathers and their experiences contributed to the rights we all enjoy today. A collection of reading, writing, and collaborative exercises prompt high schoolers to think about the ways their current lives...

Social media and United States history combine as your young historians design a Facebook page for two major defendants of landmark Supreme Court cases. The resource includes a detailed rubric for research and page design, as well as a...

Students identify the basic freedoms of citizens in the United States.  In this Bill of Rights lesson, students act out scenarios about the Bill of Rights.  Students create a picture book describing the rights they've acted out.

In an engaging activity on universal and unalienable rights, learners work in groups to establish a democratic nation and determine what principles they want to protect to ensure a democratic society. They conduct a "rights auction" in...

Explore the Bill of Rights in-depth with this resource packet that includes the complete text of the document, scenarios and discussion questions for each amendment, role-playing activities, exercises, questions for a Socratic seminar, a...

Young scholars analyze the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In this U.S. government lesson, students examine books, movies, and music that influence them today and then investigate writings that influenced the framers of the...

Where did the cherished ideals enshrined in the Bill of Rights originate? While history gives the Founding Fathers much of the credit, laws in colonial America influenced the Bill of Rights. An interactive web-based activity allows...

Provide your class with an opportunity to investigate an important historical document. Without identifying the document, distribute copies of the original Bill of Rights, as transcribed by John Beckley, Clerk of the House of...

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The activity explains what the Bill of Rights is and how it applies to everyday life, like freedom of speech or the right to a jury trial. Young historians complete hands-on...

Much like the methods of group work, the writers of the Federalist Papers worked together to advocate for their viewpoints against the anti-federalists. The resource enables learners to break into small groups and conduct research before...

Take to the stage! Integrate both drama and civic skills by asking pupils to create and perform skills that demonstrate the importance of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. After reviewing the Preamble to the Constitution, learners...

To understand the importance of the wording of the articles of the First Amendment (freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, and freedom to assembly and petition), teams argue before a jury for draft amendments of one...

Students read a variety of well-known studenT books and discuss concepts presented in the books as they relate to the Bill of Rights. They discuss the books and compare them to the Bill of Rights Amendments.

The first ten Amendments of the U.S. Constitution are vital for young people to understand. Provide the foundation of the laws that govern our country with this junior high school lesson plan. Groups use the newspaper to identify rights...

Divided the class into pairs, each group is assigned one of the amendments. They use the internet to research current cases and issues involving their amendment. They are then lead into the introduction to some of the basic concepts of...

Who is protected by the Bill of Rights? Learners examine the Bill of Rights and conduct research regarding gay people in the military. They use their research findings to prepare for and participate in a debate regarding the military ban...

In an online engaging and animated game, pupils role play as lawyers charged with protecting rights found in amendments to the United States Constitution. As they choose appropriate amendments to match the right that has...

Think about the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence with your budding historians. They analyze the importance of historical documents by examining several famous documents, and then they complete activities that check...

Prompted by a viewing of Emiko and Chizu Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon, a documentary about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, high schoolers examine a series of documents, including the Bill of Rights and the UN’s...

High schoolers focus on the 14th Amendment of the Bill of Rights to decide whether or not racism denies citizens of their rights under the amendment. They watch a movie, Every Two Seconds and complete a worksheet (included in the plan)...

Looking for some ideas for how to celebrate September 17, Constitution Day? Check out a packet that focuses on the factors that are considered in the amendment process. Class members examine the amendment process and the types of...

Using discussion questions and a poster-creating activity, learners explore how the framework of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights help create safe communities. After listening to a song about the preamble and reading the Bill of...

Did you know there are seven Articles and 27 Amendments to the US Constitution? Explore each and every one of them, including the Bill of Rights and other rights around the world, in a super neat US Constitution interactive.