I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Balance

Essential Question:

Why is the study of the Bill of Rights a study in Balance?

Bridge:

Rights/Responsibilities

Content:

4th Amendment and Freedom of Speech

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: To create an experience: create the feeling that a student's rights to privacy have been violated.

Activity: Per an earlier arrangement, one student enters class late. The teacher demands to know why. Student has no substantive reason, so the teacher forces the tardy student to empty his or her pockets, backpack, handbag, etc. since the student "looks suspicious."

Assessment: Involvement of students; their reaction to the teacher's actions.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: To analyze the experience.

Activity: Teacher leads class discussion focusing on how students felt during the confrontation. What made them uncomfortable about the teacher's demands? Why?

Assessment: The degree to which students are involved in the discussion and the level of their understanding that the issue is an infringement on one student's rights.

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: To clarify and expand upon the concept of students' rights in contrast to school officials' responsibilities.

Activity: In small groups, students create a visual metaphor of the relationship between a student's rights and a teacher's responsibilities.

Assessment: Student's ability to work within groups; demonstration of a differentiation in and relationship between the two elements.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: To read case studies of New Jersey v. T.L.O. and Tinker v. Des Moines and to analyze their significance.

Activity: Teacher and students read summaries of the two court cases and discuss the implications of each, focusing on search and seizure, freedom of speech, and balance of interests.

Assessment: Teacher monitoring of student understanding of each case, key terminology, and overall implications.

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Objective: To develop student understanding further.

Activity: In pairs, students read case studies of school disciplinary actions and decide if each administrative action was legal or illegal. Full class discussion follows.

Assessment: Understanding of fundamental issue in each case and depth of student analysis.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: To apply what has been learned.

Activity: Students change the details of the case studies (from 3L) to change illegal decisions into legal ones and legal decisions into illegal ones. Students roleplay their revised case studies.

Assessment: Student demonstration of understanding of the need for balance of interests.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: To extend what has been learned.

Activity: Students create a presentation for next year's incoming seventh grade demonstrating the concept of students rights and the school's responsibility. Presentation may be a play, a brochure, a poster, a rap - anything!

Assessment: Ability to work in a group; individual contributions to group effort.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: To share what has been learned.

Activity: Students share final projects with the rest of the class.

Assessment: Quality of final product; depth of analysis

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: