On 10/25/09, Karla wrote:
> I'm a second year teacher. Last year, I used the textbook
> to teach the Constitution unit because I was hired just a
> week before that. I didn't like using the textbook, and
> would like to try a more hands on approach this year.
> I'll be starting the unit about a month from now.
>
> I have a general idea about wanting to have the class
> involved in creating / writing the constitution. Has
> anyone done a project like this? Do you have any
> suggestions?

The word itself shuts them down. What does 'constitute' mean?
But tell them they're on Survivor but they've been left
behind. The camera crew left them there and no one is coming
back (Lord of the Flies). They will need a government or the
larger ones will toss the smaller ones in the ocean - or eat
them. (middle schoolers love that stuff)
But the camera crew left behind cans and cans of canned food
etc. etc and a single IPOD. How will they decide how much
food is eaten each day, who gets it and how will they decide
who uses the IPOD when?

To achieve order, one needs government. What kind of
government will they fashion?

That was essentially the question asked by our founding
fathers and the Constitution was the eventual answer. But a
Constitution by any other name is a still a fundamental
document of government. The Mayflower Compact. What colonies
had such documents and what didn't?

East Timor is the world's newest country I think and it wrote
a constitution - very long in comparison to ours. There's a
website that has all the world's constitutions on it.

My classes have done this - one year a group decided they
would 'elect' leaders by pulling names out of a hat and
change their leader every week. You can show the scene
in 'Bananas' where the leader takes over and promptly
announces ridiculous things - what prevents that or should?

A Constitution. Or it should.
Have fun.

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