Unit 1: The Ideals, Roots and Structure of American Government

Subtopic:  Media and Public Opinion

Description of assignment:  As a final project in my unit on Media and Public Opinion I had my students create public service announcement story boards. Their assignment was to work in groups to create a PSA that educated teenagers about how to think critically about either news sources or campaign advertisements. This assignment came at the end of a unit in which we examined the bias of different new sources including, print, television, and others. We also spent a considerable amount of time looking at the different strategies employed in campaign advertisements. My goal for this assignment was to wrap up the unit with something creative but also to synthesize two of the key ideas from the unit we just finished. Overall I was happy with the job that students did on these assignments. I gave a well structured rubric to the students and also made an exemplary PSA of my own.

Samples of student work:

Unit 2:  The Court System and Grassroots Movements as Methods of Social Change & PAR Introduction

Subtopic:  The Rule of Law and Precedence

Description of assignment:  After studying several of the suggested court cases dealing with First Amendment issues I gave the students this Argument Prep Worksheet from the We The Students resource PDF. They were also given four cards with the details of the case of Barber v. Dearborn. It was their job then to construct an argument which they presented during a moot court activity in class. We completed the assignment over the course of two days and was pleased with the results in general. Over those two days, however, I became concerned that some students still did not understand the meaning of precedence and made sure to schedule more review.

Samples of student work: