The Constitution, Day 3 - Class Recap

The African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The soldiers are carrying guns, which relates to the Second Amendment! Photo taken in 2010.

Hi everyone,

We had another good day in class today with looking more into the First Amendment and started the Second Amendment. 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 4: I can explain how different ideological movements and philosophies shape politics.
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different branches of U.S. government.

Soundtrack: "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns n' Roses. Selected for today because we are about to start looking at the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is about the right to have guns. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/4/16:
News Brief - Sarah Beth
Constitution Test
Tinker v. Des Moines
Second Amendment

Homework: Read the blog! Watch the Vice Presidential debate tonight! Next news brief: Kenneth S.
--
News Brief: Sarah Beth had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about with the class: NYTimes.com - Carolina Boy, 14, Held After Father Is Killed and 3 Are Shot at School. We discussed this tragic event as well as how it relates to the judicial and executive branches of government (and relates to the Second Amendment) before talking about the national election.

Tonight is the only Vice Presidential debate of the year, between Republican Governor Mike Pence and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine. We talked for a bit about the debate, noting that it is on at 6 PM tonight. We also looked at the updated Electoral College polling map of predictions from FiveThirtyEight.com

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

Kennth S. was selected for the next news brief.

Constitution Test: 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.

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!

Second Amendment: To continue our look at the Bill of Rights, I asked students to note Pro and Con arguments for gun rights. We will watching a documentary on this next class, and move on to looking in depth at some of the other amendments.

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: "Don't Speak" by No Doubt. Selected for today because we were talking about the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is partially about freedom of speech. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 9/30/16:
News Brief - Kira
The Constitution
The Bill of Rights
The First Amendment

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

News Brief: Today's article was brought in by Kira, who selected this story: CNN.com - Hoboken train crash: 1 dead, more than 100 injured. We discussed this recent story and how the United States government is related to investigating the causes of what happened. Thanks Kira! We also checked in about the upcoming weekend and Sarah Beth volunteered to do the next news brief.

The Constitution: 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 (we will work on that section more next week - just focus on knowing the answers to the first two 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

The Bill of Rights: 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 ran out of time after this, so we will come back to looking in depth at the Bill of Rights next class. See you then!

The Constitution, Day 1 - Class Recap

The World War I Memorial Stonehenge replica in Goldendale, Washington, overlooking the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood. Photo taken in 2015!

Hi everyone,

I enjoyed hearing about your new countries today in class, as we continued to look at the basics of how the United States government works and specifically, the Constitution. Here's what happened today:

Learning Targets:
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: "Power [Radio Edit]" by Kanye West. Selected for today because "no one man should have all that power" when it comes to government, which the Constitution made sure of!

AGENDA 9/28/16:
News Brief – Halle/Jade
The First Debate/Share Nations
The Constitution
Bill of Rights

Homework: Read the blog. Next news brief: Kira.

News Brief: Today's news brief was brought in by Halle, who selected an article about this story to talk about: WashingtonPost.com - Washington mall shooting suspect confesses to killings. We discussed this story, which was right up the I-5 freeway from us here in Oregon, as well as what happened with the reaction to this horrible event. I also mentioned that there had been a school shooting in South Carolina right before class. It's important that we are engaged citizens, so we can participate in our democracy and try and figure out a way to prevent these events from happening.

Jade also presented her news brief today, which was about this article: CNN.com - Tulsa police officer charged with manslaughter. This relates to the ongoing focus on police violence, especially in regards to people of color in our country.

Thanks, Halle and Jade for bringing in these important stories to our class. Kira volunteered for the next news brief.

The First Debate/Share Nations: As part of the News Brief section, I definitely wanted to talk about the debate: CNN.com - The first presidential debate in under 2 minutes. We watched this video and discussed the first presidential debate of the general election, which was Monday night between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was interesting to hear different student perspectives on it! I also showed the latest FiveThirtyEight.com projection map for what the current polls are suggesting will happen on Election Day in November.

Again, this was creating your own nation, which is a break away of some of the western states from the United States. In groups of 2 or 3, this was the assignment, which were presented in class: 

Google Drive - Creation of a Nation Assignment

I enjoyed listening to these presentations and hearing about your proposed ideas for what a new country should look like! Thank you for your effort on this. I know we spent a large part of class on this, and I just thought it was a fun way to look at what our ideal governments might look like. I also really loved the flags, which I will aim to have up on the walls soon!

The Constitution: Next, I directed students back to our Google Classroom page to click on this handout/worksheet, which looks at different aspects of what makes up the United States Constitution:

Google Drive - Constitution and Bill of Rights Handout

We barely had a chance to start this in class, after learning about how to open this and edit it using the Kami software for the Chromebooks. If you want to continue to work on completing this outside of class, here is a copy of the Constitution to look at. Next class, we'll have some time to work on this together, before going over the answers, as it is a study guide.

Please keep this packet, as you will be using it to study for an upcoming test on the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights: We did not get to the Bill of Rights today, so we will look more in depth at this next class. Thanks for your hard work today! I really appreciate your attendance in class and focus!