We finished looking, tentatively of course, at our Constitution.  We examined the history of the document, tracing it all the way back to the Declaration of Independence.  From there, we analyzed the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10) and saw how they were applied in today’s world.  We then transitioned to focus on the remainder of the Constitutional Amendments (11-27); with a particular focus on some of the major amendments and how they are applied today.

Our next activity will be a self-assessment by the students; where they can document and record their strengths, areas of growth, and develop a plan for improvement in the future.   Additionally, we will be participating in an essay contest, put on by our local VA branch, which is designed to get students focused on thinking about the value of their vote and what it really means to them.  We are doing this in multiple stages; starting with an interview with a veteran.  So if your 8th grader has not contacted you (or posted on their blog) the need to interview a veteran, feel free to reach out to them about it.

We had an amazing set of guest speakers today from the Center for Cartoon Studies, promoting their cartoon This is What Democracy Looks Like.  What a treat!  This cartoon is a simplified version of what our democracy really is; not what you see/hear on the television.  It is a step by step guide for people to get an understanding of how our government is supposed to work.

Our presenters had a really good system set up.  One would talk the kids past the difficult concepts and work out an issue with them.  The other would draw what we were talking about.  It was a really cool one-two system.

Below are some of the notes they ended up drawing as we discussed what Democracy looks like locally and nationally.

The beginning part of our discussion. We focused on what Democracy looked like…starting with an issue we can all relate to: bad cafeteria food. If the food is bad, what percentage of kids will do something about it?

Our second part of the conversation centered around who you would go to get help to solve a problem. As we added in people, we started to create a tangled web of connections; which quickly became overwhelming. Once you unravel the web though, it is easier to see what you need to do and how to solve your problem.

Our tangled web of who we would talk to in order to solve our problems.

The comic that everyone received. It is an awesome read and I recommend it to all!

A drawing from one of our students; showcasing how they felt about some of the issues related to their existence. Future professional comic book artist in our midst?

One of the biggest challenges history teachers face is the notion that history is boring.  Admittedly, some of the documents can be a bit dry (and tough to translate).  We set about to read and understand what the Declaration of Independence is and what it means.  Students, in groups of two or three, read an original version of the Declaration.  They did their best to understand and summarize what this section means.  After summarizing, they shared this section with the class; where we all pieced together this amazing document.

Breaking down the first two sections.  Looking at the Preamble (P), what is this part of the document referring to?  It is the colonies telling the UK we are not happy.  Our second section, the Statements of Belief (SoB) explains what we want and are looking for.

Section three is just a list of complaints we had against the king; section four a list of the things we did to make it right.  Section five is our actual Declaration of Independence (DoI)…it is the chapter the book is named after.

After reading the Declaration of Independence, someone had a question of what was in the Constitution.  Well, we started to put together a list of things we knew were going to be in there (simply because they were complaints we had in the Declaration of Independence).  It is amazing just how much we know about a document we never read (The Constitution) just because we read a section of another document (The Declaration of Independence).

We just started our exploration of what it means to be an American citizen.  That question certainly has a host of answers and in theory, not many answers are incorrect whereas there are a near endless supply of correct answers.  Each student will focus on answering this question throughout our class.

We started to answer this question by first looking more into our Declaration of Independence.  What does this document mean to us?  What light does this document shed on who we are as citizens?

If you have not done so already, check out your student’s blog.  Look at their response to this question.  Ask them questions to further their thinking.  We will continue to come back to this question as we continue to learn more about ourselves and our country.