American Citizenship

The teacher will start the class with the following discussion question, “Why are writing down the laws important? Students may discuss as a group, with partners, or may write down their thoughts on their own. Once students have shared their ideas, their teacher will then lead a whole class discussion. 

From the discussion, the class should conclude that it is important to write down the laws so that a person’s rights can not be denied. From there the teacher will lead into the idea that it was this very same reason for the creation of the Bill of Rights so that a citizen’s rights can not be denied. However, in the past Congress has looked at making changes to the Constitution. If you (the student) were presented with this challenge, what two rights from the Bill of Rights would you keep and why? 

From this point the teacher would present each student with a copy of the Bill of Rights for them to be able to read through with a partner and choose the two that they feel are the most important. Then provide their reasons why those two have to stay in the Constitution. After the groups write down their reasons, the teacher will pair groups together to share the two rights they picked and their reasons to convince the other group to join their side on why their two rights are the ones to keep. The teacher may switch up groups as many times as they like. 

After group discussions,  the teacher will then have the students create a campaign poster to persuade others to join their side on why their two rights must be kept and how they best show what it means to be a citizen.