"I Declare, I believe this document May Flower!"

The learner will apply ideas of self-government as expressed in America's founding documents. To be used with/for SLD and other exceptional students.

A lesson plan for grades 8–10 English Language Arts

By Gary Peterson

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Related pages

• The five parts of the Fifth: This lesson will focus on the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution and its intent to provide due process to citizens. Students will engage in writing, discussion, cooperative learning, art, and theatrical activities in gaining an understanding of the Amendment and its concepts.
• "We the People": Students will gain a better understanding of the U.S. Constitution by exploring the language of the Constitution.
• Goodbye, Bill Of Rights!: Students will enact a scene demonstrating life without one of the first ten amendments. Students will be put into groups of three or four and assigned a specific amendment to research.

Related topics

• Learn more about Bill of Rights, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Mayflower Compact, United States, civics, government, language arts, learning disabilities, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

The students will be able to isolate and analyze the main idea(s) in a historical document and re-write the main theme of the document in common grammatically correct language. This lesson plan was established for a block schedule and to meet the regular education English/History objectives for SLD students as well as other exceptional students.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

7 days

Materials/resources

• copies for each student of:
• The Mayflower Compact
• The Declaration of Independence
• The US Constitution
• The Bill of Rights
• pencil and paper/notebook

Be sure to coordinate this lesson as a supplementary plan with/for your school’s English and History departments.

Technology resources

overhead projector
word processing program and disk

Pre-activities

Teacher will present each document on the overhead and students will have a copy to follow as the teacher reads and explains the document and relevant surrounding historical events.

(Optional) Students will make a timeline of events as described by the teacher during discussion time.

Activities

1. Students will be divided into groups according to reading ability levels. Each group should be heterogeneous.
2. Each group will be assigned a historical document or section of a historical document from among the available material provided by the teacher.
3. Each student will use highlighters to isolate the main idea(s) in their assigned document or document component (i.e. Article 1-3 of the Constitution).
4. Each student group will develop a list of pros and cons relative to the students’ understanding of the main theme.
5. Each student group will prepare a written statement that re-states the main idea in clear everyday correct grammar. Each student group will proofread the new statement for content and grammatical mistakes (assisted by English and/or EC teacher).
6. Each student group will list five practical examples of the main idea as it is used in society/culture today.
7. Each student in a group will type the main idea as it has been rewritten onto a computer file via a word processing program.
8. Each student will then SAVE the file to hard drive, SAVE the file to disk, and print a hard copy of the file.
9. Teacher will then make overhead transparency copy of the statements for in-class presentation by the student groups.
10. Students will then be given an appropriate amount of time to prepare a class presentation. Each student will be responsible for a portion of the presentation. NOTE: Teachers may have to assist in assigning a correct proportion of this assignment within the group according to ability.

Assessment

• Students should be graded based on the presentation on the overhead transparency of the groups re-written document and a verbal presentation, explanation, and correct analysis of the document and how this document is relevant in the students society/culture using concrete examples (three per assigned document or section).
• Document should be graded by regular education teachers for content (in context of the main idea) and grammatical correctness.
• Each document will be typed on the computer keyboard using a standard word processing program using spelling and grammar checks appropriately.
• Students will save the document to a floppy disk and/or to the hard drive.

Supplemental information

Comments

The expectations of student achievement should be decided by a cooperative effort the EC teacher and the regular education teachers BEFORE the plan is implemented. The plan itself is adaptable to any level from SLD to AG according to the teacher’s flexibility in delivery, and expectations. Best of luck to all of you.