FoundingDocs2013

This is a helpful elementary level lesson so that students can understand the five rights contained in the First Amendment.

This website breaks down Thomas Jefferson's role in writing the Declaration of Independence using child friendly language for elementary students. Other areas of the website include more background information on Jefferson and Monticello.

Elementary students can use this website to understand how a bill becomes a law. The process is broken down in child friendly language and there is a great interactive glossary. Students can hover the mouse over a word and the definition will pop up.

This is awesome Laura! Great find!

An article is this week's New Yorker, By Jeffrey Toobin. He talks about problems with the Constitution and challenges conventional wisdom that it is a sacred document. This link just shows you the first page - must be a subscriber to read the whole thing. Might be worth checking it out in your school library or a new stand, though, the article seems like one I might use with my students.

This might be a stretch for elementary and middle school. But I think it's workable for 8th grade and beyond. The lesson has students learning about the distinction between a democratic republic and direct democracy using Federalist paper No. 10

Agreed about the stretch. I would even say this is too tough for grade 8 since the vocab is dense. Would need a lot of infrastructure to get kids prepared.

Lesson plan from scholastic on women's suffrage for grades 6-8.

Gr. 8 lesson plan on comparing the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution.

This a is a topic list organized by Cornell Law of decisions made by the Supreme Court. Good resource for possible research projects.

Tough read for kids but great background for teachers.

What doesn't the Standford History Education Group have on their site? The site offers everything from lesson plans, to primary source materials, to pedagogical approaches to teaching history, to assessment materials. This site has especially great tools for getting students to think like historians!

I love the section of "reading like A Historian".

The American Civil Liberties Union has a vast array of materials hosted on their site. Perhaps the materials of greatest use to teachers are the frequent "news releases" about issues pertaining to our individual freedoms that are currently in the news.

The is a site that teachers should bookmark and read weekly because it keeps you up to date with the issues of the day.

The Oyez Project is the best site available for Supreme Court decisions and business currently before the court. As I write this description, there are currently two articles about the court considering same-sex marriage issues on the front page.

This is the National Archives' "Charters of Freedom" website. In addition to having full transcriptions of the DOI, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, there are links to many ancillary materials as well. Included in the site are lesson suggestions, other primary source materials, and scholarly essays about the legacy of our Founding Documents.

This site is all annotated primary documents from around the world. There are some really interesting things to explore. It would be a fun way to introduce students to primary sources. It also might provide some interesting things to show students to enhance your teaching.

Great TED talk videos that pertain to U.S. History and the Constitution. I used one of these in my class that discusses creating the Presidency. At the end of the video is asks students to think about what they would have included when creating the Presidency.

A good primary source document that Thurgood Marshall gave in 1987 on the 200th anniversary of the US Constitution; giving reference that this document is a living document for generations to come.

A discussion of impacts that the Declaration of Independence has had on African-American experiences and perspectives.

Discussion of the Declaration of Independence as a 'living' document, with contemporary connections to the Reparations Movement.

An expressive reading of the Declaration of Independence by celebrities which could be used as a read-along support or as an access point for auditory/visual learners.