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First Amendment Rights
This site offers extensive lessons on a variety of immigration-related historical topics. It includes full lesson plans, worksheets, and links to articles and videos. While designed for grades 6-12, it could be used in an advanced English or GED class. Read More
Annenberg Guide to the United States Constitution
Part of the Annenberg Classroom website, this resource displays each section of the Constitution, followed by an explanation of the meaning in modern (though still advanced-level) English. It may be beneficial for an advanced English or GED class, or teachers can simplify further for other levels. The site also includes other civics and political science lesson plans. Read More
Making Sense of the Amendments
Students will read and summarize some of the amendments to the Constitution, focusing especially on the 14th Amendment. This will be used as an opportunity to discuss, model, and practice strategies for making sense of unfamiliar challenging text. Students’ work is self-paced; they work on this assignment for about an hour a day over two weeks. Read More
Know Your Rights: 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments
In this module, students will read about exercising their 4th, 5th and 6th amendment rights during an encounter with ICE. Students will practice listening for specific phrases they can apply to interactions with ICE and practice using those phrases in role plays. Read More
Mock Hearing Before the Supreme Court
Part of a series of lesson plans from the ACLU of Maine, intended for high school students, about constitutional rights. After a teacher explains the 4th amendment (searches and seizures), students form a "Supreme Court" and debate an actual past SCOTUS case. The case deals with searching students' belongings, but could be used to explain protection against unlawful search more generally (i.e., stopped by officers on the street). Read More
Do You Know Your Bill of Rights?
Activity where students refer to "The Constitution and Rights" section of the Judicial Learning Center's website, which explains the amendments in the Bill of Rights, and fill in a handout with key vocabulary. A good intro to constitutional rights; could be used as a vocabulary activity for high-level ELL or GED students, or a digital literacy activity. Note: This website also has an Educator Center with a variety of additional podcast and video activities, online learning modules, lesson plans, and other resources. Read More
NewseumED
NewseumED provides a wide range of resources related to the First Amendment and media/information literacy. Along with an extensive lesson plan library, the site has created "EDcollections," which brings together archival materials, primary sources, interactives, and standards-based lesson plans for all levels of students. Activities related to free speech, media literacy, women's suffrage, the First Amendment, the Civil Rights Movement, and decoding elections are found in these EDcollections. Other useful resources include an artifact library where users can download and view impactful images from history. In addition, the site also has a number of videos related to media literacy topics such as bias and objectivity, and each one is accompanied by a related lesson plan. Read More
Civics Renewal Network
The Civics Renewal Network is a consortium of nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that is committed to providing free high-quality learning materials. In their repository, teachers have access to a wide-range of civics and government resources along with others related to history, citizenship, and media literacy. Based on the number of items, teachers can narrow their search by subject, grade level, resource type, standard, or by a specific teaching strategy such as debate, whole class, project-based learning or role play. Read More
Bill of Rights Institute
The goal of the Bill of Rights Institute is to provide a better understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights through 4000 resources that are free and generally leveled for the middle/high school classroom. Educators can access primary source-based lessons and and current event articles that are frequently updated. There is also an extensive collection of videos and podcasts to introduce and engage students on a variety relevant topics. Moreover, teachers can pull individual lessons from ready-made curricula that are generally based on America's founding principles. For professional development, the site provides eLearning for teachers to support their planning and delivery on topics related to U.S. Government. Read More
Youth Leadership Initiative
The Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) offers free education resources for teachers along with other materials to encourage students to participate in the political process. Teachers can download K-12 and adult leveled lessons on topics such as the political process, foundations of American government, the presidency, and political beliefs and behaviors. Teachers can sign-up for YLI’s E-Congress program that allows students to learn about Congress by writing original legislation. YLI’s online mock election activity uses electronic ballots tailored to each student’s home legislative district. Read More