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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

What are the Amendments?

Before the reading of "I Want to Vote" in the Scott Foresman basal reader, I assigned each member of my class to look up a Constitutional Amendment on the web-site http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend . This was done in order to give the students a background in Amendments and the history of America. Following the assigning of the Amendments the students interviewed 10 adults to find out how many people are familiar with their Constitutional Amendments. One math extension is to graph the results of the students' interviews.

A lesson plan for grade 5 English Language Arts

By Jeremy Luna

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

  • research the Amendments of the Constitution.
  • paraphrase the Amendment into their own words to make it meaningful to them.
  • generate a picture to represent what the Amendment means to them.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3-5 Days

Materials/resources

Computer with Internet access
Poster boards
Graph paper

Technology resources

Computer with Internet access.

Pre-activities

This lesson is actually a pre-activity to reading “I Want to Vote” in the Scott Foresman basal reader. But to build up to this lesson I began to treat the girls a little better than the boys in little ways like giving them 5 minutes of free time, treats at lunch, highlighters, and other little things. After a few days, and the day before beginning the story, I asked the class how it felt to being treated differently. This discussion grew into talking about laws and rules.

Activities

After a few days of treating the girls a little better than the boys, I led the class in a discussion about how it feel not to be included in things because of their sex or the color of their skin or because of some other thing. This led into a discussion about fairness, rules, and laws.

Once the discussion was coming to a close, I had the students number themselves (1,2,3.…) which would be their Amendment and informed the students that they were about to go to the computer lab and log on to the web site http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend.html. (This web-site lists every Amendment) to look up and copy their assigned Amendment. After they had copied their Amendment, they were to paraphrase it on the bottom half of their paper. Next they are to create a drawing or find a picture to attach to their paper that shows what they think their Amendment means.

Once the students have completed their copying of the Amendment, paraphrasing of the Amendment, and drawing or finding a picture to go with their Amendment, the students are to interview 10 people. During the interview they are to ask the person:

  • “Do you know what an Amendment is?”
  • “Do you know what Amendment number (insert their researched Amendment)?

If the interviewed person answers “NO” to question number 2, then the student is to explain their Amendment and then ask question 2 again. The student are to record the results on a tally sheet.

After the interview and the recording of the answers, the students are to create a bar graph to represent the interviewed peoples’ answers.

Assessment

Copying the Amendment: Completed (5) or Incomplete (0).

Paraphrasing the Amendment: graded on a 3-2-1 scale--

3- Complete sentences. Proper sentence structure. Thoughts are the students own and not copied form the original Amendment directly.

2- Mostly complete sentences. Most sentences have proper sentence structure. The students’ thoughts are mostly their own.

1- Few complete sentences. Few sentences with proper structure. The student put little thought of their own into it.

Drawing or Picture: Complete (5) or Incomplete (0).

Interview and Graph: Complete (10)or Incomplete (0).

Total possible: 23 points

Supplemental information

I am sure that you could use this lesson with some other story other than “I Want to Vote” in the Scott Foresman basal.

Related websites

http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Amend.html This website was used to find out information about the Amendments to the Constitution.

Comments

See reflections.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 5

  • Goal 3: The learner will make connections through the use of oral language, written language, and media and technology.
    • Objective 3.01: Respond to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama using interpretive, critical, and evaluative processes by:
      • analyzing word choice and content.
      • examining reasons for a character's actions, taking into account the situation and basic motivation of the character.
      • creating and presenting a product that effectively demonstrates a personal response to a selection or experience.
      • examining alternative perspectives.
      • evaluating the differences among genres.
      • examining relationships among characters.
      • making and evaluating inferences and conclusions about characters, events and themes.
    • Objective 3.06: Conduct research (with assistance) from a variety of sources for assigned or self-selected projects (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people, libraries, databases, computer networks).