FoundingDocs2013

This is a great American History website aimed at elementary students. They break down the articles nicely for younger readers. One thing I don't love about it is how the search works - it goes from kid friendly to something that looks more overwhelming and adult. The site is really easy to explore and perfect for beginning researchers and historians.

This site would be useful for high school students exploring the rights of felons to vote. It compares different state laws. The sidebar options would help set up students to debate the issue.

This link is even more useful - full-text copies of all major anti-federalist writings. I've spent hours looking for great anti-federalist resources - here they are all in one place! Fantastic.

I feel like there have been several times when I've been looking for a site just like this - an easy list and full-text of all the federalist papers. Outline format makes it easy to find what you're looking for.

I actually found this site after I read Janet's piece on narrative in history. The article that we read this week on the creation of the Constitution made me think of this site, as that piece drove home the power of narrative to engage learners. This site offers a great outline for those of us in the position to teach the writing of historical narrative.

Thanks for sharing. This is such a useful extention to the piece that Marshall and I wrote. Very important points are made to differentiate historical narrative from all other narratives - important to be true to the history as we weave the narrative.

A well organized and student friendly site with a great pdf download of the primary source.

This video is straightforward and fascinating, helping to explain issues of apportionment. It really emphasizes the complexity faced by the Supreme Court in trying to interpret and understand the Constitution.

I really enjoy starting each unit I do with a combination of texts and images, mainly primary sources, for students to observe and start to form impressions and questions. These LOC primary source sets are great for this!

Thanks for sharing your teaching strategy!

A nice cheat sheet for teachers with questions (important and nice to know) about the Constitution AND the answers! Some examples include: Q. How long did it take to frame the Constitution? Q. From what classes of society were the members of the Constitutional Convention drawn?

These lessons (geared toward middle school or lower level high school) ask students to closely read the Declaration of Independence, summarize key parts of it, and then use persuasive writing and evidence from the document to answer open response type questions. These lessons address several Common Core Standards.

A nice, short, comparison of the language in both the Articles and the Constitution.

A simple, interactive game where students can click on items in a scene and find out if they are protected under their 4th Amendment rights.

This website has historic maps of every presidential election. It is a valuable resource to teach those complicated elections - the visual really helps.

Rock the Vote, a movement to encourage young people to vote, provides a wealth of resources, in young person friendly language, about the importance of voting and how to register.

This is a great site for younger students to gain some knowledge about voting rights in this country. Its very easy to navigate, kid friendly and presents brief amounts of text on each page. 3rd-5th graders would find this a helpful introduction to voting rights.

I have used this site for years to introduce the structure of our government and more. It is broken down by grade so every teacher, k-12 will find this incredibly useful. Great visuals and a better explanation of our confusing election process than I've ever seen.

This might work nicely for comparing ancient democracies to ours today, specifically comparing and contrasting the balance of power. It is accessible enough that my 7th graders could explore it on their own.

I love this site! It has text files of constitutions from countless countries as well as our own constitution translated into many of the languages that our ELL population speak.

Interesting concept to have our constitution available so many languages.

This is a very useful website for the elementary classroom. I've had students do research using this site. It definitely over simplifies the amendments, but for yound learners it makes them understandable. Lots of great parent and teacher links too!

This is a link to a 1997 article/piece from the Los Angeles Times that summarizes who was/was not a citizen at various points throughout US History.