Imagine sitting down with representatives of your school to write a new student handbook. What arguments would ensue? How would compromises be made to finish the project? Scholars research the Constitutional Convention using a directory...

Why should classes care about the First Amendment? An engaging lesson serves as a powerful tool for answering just that. As all four cases in the lesson relate directly to freedom of expression in schools, young scholars explore the...

Just like you choose your clothes to ensure they fit the occasion, you should choose your words deliberately while writing. Style, the main topic of one handout in a series on writing skills, involves choosing words carefully and paying...

As many unfortunate journalists have learned, taking someone else's ideas and passing them off as your own is never a good idea. It's called plagiarism—and it's a big deal. Thankfully, a handout helps writers learn how to avoid...

When researchers write a paper, they become curators of information. It's their job to determine the best sources of information on a topic and use those sources to inform their writing. As part of a larger series, a handout on annotated...

Find background information on the Constitution of the United States of America, and learn the three basic principles upon which the Constitution was written. Additional content includes a look at the text of the Constitution, the events...

Read a short synopsis about the writing of the Constitution and then complete the crossword puzzle by clicking on the "show what you know" link.

Those writing the Constitution had many issues to deal with in forming a document to govern the country. One thorny issue was the status of the states in regard to representation in the federal legislature. Read about the Virginia Plan...

Article outlines the issues of debate over slavery and the compromises made while writing the Constitution.

This site is from a unit called 'Writing the US Constitution.' It looks at the documents that preceded the Constitution, and the major issues that were debated while the Constitution was being created.

The delegates at the Constitution established strict guidelines for writing the document. Read about the general housekeeping rules, and the way they reached compromises.

This tutorial focuses on revising the thesis and topic sentences using two videos and two slideshows. The first video discusses a 3-step revising process for making sure the thesis fits the paper; the second video focuses on what...

Read some historians' views about the Founding Fathers and their interests, perhaps economic, in writing the Constitution. Historians' views have changed over time, and in the suggested student exercises, students are asked to assess...

Find short biographies of twenty-three of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention and their ideas about government. These men were certainly not representative of the common man in the new United States, but they were...

There was no Bill of Rights attached to the original Constitution, but it was a topic of discussion. Read a reconstruction of speeches of delegates to the Constitutional Convention who debated for and against the inclusion of a way to...

A lesson plan introducing or revisiting the role of Gouverneur Morris in the planning and writing of the United States Constitution.

Article and activity offering students problem-based learning by examining conflict, past and present, that call in to question our Constitutional Rights. Questions for writing and discussion as well as small group learning activity.

Article on the Sudan region history and the Mahdi's holy war against British imperialism and Egypt. Includes questions for writing and discussion, short research project outline relating this historical event with modern conflict, and...

Article on American policy and the war in Afghanistan in which students read background history and assert an informed opinion about what they think the U.S. role in Afghanistan should be. Small group work and questions for writing and...

Articles in which students explore the history of conservation and environmentalism in America and the modern controversy surrounding it while simultaneously exploring public perception and policy. Includes small group activity and...

Article looks at war and military by examining the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalists and Communists. Includes questions for discussion and writing and small group activity in which students use evidence to support the main...

Compromise was the name of the game when writing the Constitution. See how taxation, elections, and the power of the federal government were enshrined in the document. Marvel at the ideas that were rejected.

Read about how compromises were reached at the Philadelphia convention that dealt with issues between large and small states, and slave and free states. Take the quick quiz to assess knowledge about the writing of the Constitution.

See how colonial and state constitutions differed and how the idea of a social contract between a government and its citizens is reflected in the state constitutions. The second half of this site gives an abbreviated text of the Articles...