Rights of the Accused - Class Recap

Rays of the sun streaming through the flag of the United States, over the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Picture taken in 2011.

Hi everyone,

Welcome back from your weekend! I am still looking forward to the week, of course. Here's the recap for the day:

Learning Targets Addressed:
Knowledge LT 2: I can demonstrate an understanding of the role of governments in current issues.
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different branches of U.S. government.

Soundtrack: “99 Problems (Clean)" by Jay Z. Selected for today because it discusses the various protections that the Bill of Rights offers. Lyrics (which are decidedly NOT clean, but Rap Genius does offer some interesting interpretations of what they mean) here.

AGENDA 10/9/17:
News Brief - Seraiah
Review Constitution Quiz
Gun Nation Debrief
Rights of the Accused

Homework: Read the blog! Keep reviewing the Bill of Rights for upcoming quiz (on Friday). Take the Political Spectrum test if you want. Next news brief: Alexis.

News Brief: Seraiah had the news brief today, but was not in class at the start, so I filled in and selected this story to talk about: CNN.com - The price tag for Pence's trip to Indianapolis. A very interesting story involving the anthem protests and taxpayer funded travel for government officials, as well!

Alexis was assigned to do the next news brief.

I also discussed Oregon's declaration of today as Indigenous People's Day. The slideshow I went through can be found here:

Google Drive - Indigenous People's Day in Oregon

Hopefully this was informative and interesting to you!

Fourth Amendment: Because I want to get done with the Bill of Rights, today we looked through the details of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th Amendments. We continued going through a packet of individual U.S. Supreme Court cases that helped set the scope of the Fourth Amendment. That packet is here:

Google Drive - Fourth Amendment Protections Handout

We finished the case on the last page today, which basically said that police can have time to get a search warrant while a suspect is waiting.

Pleading The Fifth: I showed this clip to introduce the Fifth Amendment (starting at 5:10 in to the video):

CC.com - Chappelle's Show: Pleading the Fifth

This led to another handout, going through the rights of the accused in the United States. I know it was a heavy day of handouts and readings, so I appreciate your focus and effort in looking at these together!

Google Drive - Rights of the Accused Handout

We went over the case studies and had some more good discussion about various student questions. See you next class! We will have some fun with Jeopardy!

Second Amendment - Class Recap

Inside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. Photo taken in 2010.

Dear class,

Thanks for checking in on the blog! We continued looking at the Bill of Rights together today, and diving into what the main ones mean.

Here's what happened:

Learning Targets Addressed:

Knowledge LT 2: I can demonstrate an understanding of the role of governments in current issues.
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different branches of U.S. government.

Soundtrack: "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay. Selected for today for the philosophy of government because the song talks about a king. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/5/17:
News Brief - Yovanka
Constitution Quiz
Gun Nation
Rights of the Accused

Homework: Read the blog! Next news brief: Seraiah.
--
News Brief: Yovanka had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about with the class: ABCNews.go.com - Mother who refused to bring son's vaccinations up to date sentenced to 7 days in jail. We discussed this story and had an interesting discussion in class about the role of the government in public health and making people get vaccinated. Thanks, everyone!

We also talked a bit about the upcoming weekend, before moving on.

Seraiah volunteered for the next news brief.

Constitution Quiz: As promised! I hope that this went well for everyone. I will try to have them graded and entered later today. The first 10 questions were about the philosophy of U.S. Government, the second 10 questions were about the branches of government/checks of power, and the last 10 questions were about the Bill of Rights.

Gun Nation: This was the "Gun Nation" episode of the "30 Days" documentary series. I asked students to note Pro and Con arguments for gun rights, as well as what students thought should happen now with gun rights in America. I think this episode does a really good job of looking at both sides of the debate, and is pretty powerful. We will debrief this next class!

Rights of the Accused: We did not get to this in class, due to time. We will next time! Have a great weekend, everyone.

The Constitution, Day 2 - Class Recap

Fireworks over Niagara Falls, in 2009. 

Hi everyone,

Thanks for continuing to work on getting to know the Constitution better! I know it may not be the most fun part of class, but it is so important for knowing the foundations of how our government works! Here's what we did today in class:

Learning Targets Addressed: 
Knowledge LT 2: I can demonstrate an understanding of the role of governments in current issues.
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different branches of U.S. government.

Soundtrack: "Runnin' Down a Dream" by Tom Petty. Selected for today because of Mr. Petty passing away yesterday at the age of 66. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/3/17:
News Brief - Gibelli
Bill of Rights
The First Amendment
Tinker v. Des Moines

Homework: Read the blog! Prepare for Constitution test next class by studying the handout answers! Next news brief: Yovanka.

News Brief: Today's article was brought in by Gibelli, who selected this story: OregonLive.com - Oregon's new distracted driving law takes effect Oct. 1: what you need to know. We discussed this recent story in terms of what is allowed and why the Oregon state government would make this law. Thanks Gibelli! We also checked in about the last weekend and Yovanka volunteered to do the next news brief.

The Bill of Rights/First Amendment: The first ten amendments to the Constitution are called the Bill of Rights. To start this part of class, I showed this clip from The Daily Show, looking at what some people working for FOX News had to say in regards to the Bill of Rights and the Boston Marathon bomber.

We continued looking at the Constitution packet we started working on through Google Classroom and Kami last class, which had the Bill of Rights as a part of the last couple of pages.

Please make sure to study the entire packet for the test next class. If you missed class the last two times, here it is to download and fill out by reading the Constitution:

Google Drive: Understanding the Constitution Handout

As I said, here's the reward for checking the blog: a (tough, because I did not specifically ask you this in class) question from the Constitution test:

All of the following are included in the Preamble to the Constitution EXCEPT _____________.
a. establish justice c. the pursuit of happiness
b. provide for the common defense d.  promote the general welfare

Tinker v. Des Moines: This was about the First Amendment protections, and I had students take notes on their Chromebooks as I went through this PowerPoint on some interesting cases that relate to student rights:

Google Drive - First Amendment Case Studies

We looked at some specifics of the cases, including the speech in the Bethel case and an article about the reaction from 2009 when the Westview Prowl student newspaper published an article about sex on campus.

After going through the PowerPoint, I asked students to open this document on Google Classroom and work on the answers using Kami:

Google Drive - Tinker v. Des Moines and Texas v. Johnson Cases

We went through these interesting cases and answers as a class - know them for future reference, please! See you next class!