This lesson enhances the student experience during the Judge Chats program at the National Constitution Center. It is an anticipatory activity that helps students explore the requisite skills necessary to become a judge. Through this lesson, students will create a list of questions, based on what they learned in class, to share with the visiting judge during the Judge Chat program. The students will access their personal experiences to connect with the content of
this lesson. They will examine and analyze primary source documents, in order to understand how the U.S. Constitution
and state constitutions established the qualifications and duties of judges.

This middle school lesson plan focuses on the themes of freedom and citizenship. Students will explore the events that led up to the issuance of General Order #3, while considering the relationship between freedom and citizenship, and why Juneteenth is significant for all Americans.

The goal of the jury selection process in both civil and criminal proceedings is to seat an impartial jury. Longstanding processes and procedures are followed to ensure that a trial is fair for the two opposing parties. The Supreme Court decision in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co. (1991), however, wasn’t about a violation related to either party’s constitutional rights; it was about the rights of prospective jurors. Constitutional protections apply to the rights of all private individuals in a courtroom, including prospective jurors.

Before Edmonson, the law only prevented race-based peremptory challenges in criminal trials. With Edmonson, the Court extended the prohibition to civil trials. “Racial discrimination,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion of the Court, “has no place in the courtroom, whether the proceeding is civil or criminal.” It threatens the fairness and impartiality of the proceedings and violates equal protection principles.

In this lesson, students analyze the interplay of processes and procedures that courts use to seat an impartial jury and gain appreciation for the essential role of juries in the justice system. They also explore the responsibilities and limits placed on government by the Constitution in the context of civil and criminal trials.

The Wisconsin Social Studies/Civics K-5 Suggested Scope & Sequence is divided by grade. Each grade has a theme, with K-2 having a common theme of “place” and 3-5 having a common theme of “Wisconsin and U.S. Studies”. Each grade has 4-10 topics, which could align to local units. This formatting was adapted from the 2018 History and Social Science Framework by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education.

Each topic is further divided into planning ideas tied to specific grade-level indicators from the Wisconsin Standards for Social Studies (2018). These planning ideas include:
• Potential Essential Questions, tied to the standards
• Focusing Questions for the topic
• Driving (DQ) and Guiding (GQ) Questions from the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap
• Specific Social Studies Indicators met with this topic
• Important Terms and Points to Consider
• Supporting Resources to Consider, including lesson plans from trusted resources, and suggested additional texts such as primary sources and trade books.

The essential, focusing, driving, and guiding questions are meant to help guide instruction
and determine quality resources and lessons for use in the classroom.

This six-minute video takes students “behind the stage” at political party conventions by interviewing the convention manager and speechwriting team who launched Barack Obama’s national political career by choosing him to make the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Deconstructing how conventions function as a complex messaging operations involving the coordination of hundreds of speakers, the video provides students with insight into one of the most important moments in modern American politics, and would be useful in any sequence of lessons focused on the election of presidents or modern campaigning methods.

This 12-minute video and lesson plan explore the September 11 terrorist attacks, which occurred 20 years ago, before any of today’s K-12 students were born. How can we examine the events of that day and the aftermath as historians would? This activity asks students to examine primary sources, pose questions for investigation and gather additional narratives from this time period.

After the 2000 election night ended with no clear winner and exposed flaws in our voting system, there was a push for reforms to make elections run more smoothly. This 12-minute video introduces students to the turmoil and confusion of the Bush v. Gore election recount and illustrates the surprising and unintended aftermath of that event: Instead of reforms, there was a change toward an even more politicized electoral process. Useful as an introduction to the Bush v. Gore election controversy, the video can also be used to set up a conversation about the past and future of voting rights and voter suppression.

This four-minute video explores the causes and consequences of the Democratic Party’s division into two parties following the Democratic national convention of 1860. After rejecting Stephen A. Douglas’s failed attempt to reconcile the Northern and Southern factions of the party with his doctrine of “popular sovereignty,” the Southern delegates walked out of the convention. That decision led to the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and 50 years of Republican dominance in national politics. A concise summary of the unusual events that allowed Abraham Lincoln to win the election of 1860, the video fits into any sequence of lessons on the factors leading to secession and the Civil War.

Is the justice system in the United States responding to increased extremism appropriately? What is at stake? Who should address increasing violence? Students will engage in the inquiry process by developing questions related to extremism, building contextual knowledge, and assessing the effectiveness of interventions to address extremism.

Content Advisory:
This film and accompanying resources deal with sensitive topics that may be triggering for some students. The exploration of hate groups, white supremacy, and violence are topics that should receive great care in the classroom. Some school districts may employ YouTube content filters that block the material. If you need access, please email David Olson at dolson@retroreport.com.

To stave off a nationwide housing crisis during the coronavirus pandemic, Washington lawmakers passed a massive spending package and officials implemented new housing policies, including a federal ban on evictions. As the eviction moratorium expired across the country, the larger debate over housing, and which policies would best help the tight market and the unhoused continued. What should be done about housing insecurity?

These excerpts from Facing Eviction center on the precarious, high stakes journeys of tenants trying to hang on during the pandemic and also reveal how the eviction moratorium impacted landlords who were deprived of income, sheriffs who were conflicted about having to enforce the eviction ban, judges grappling with how to interpret the policy, and lawyers and social workers helping tenants stave off the devastating consequences of eviction.

This seven-minute video and accompanying lesson plan looks at how throughout the 1960’s and 70’s the second wave feminism movement worked to address gender inequality across the United States. While the movement had several important victories, the Equal Rights Amendment was not passed. Was the second wave feminist movement a success nonetheless?

This ten-minute video examines what obligation countries have to refugees. It’s a question as important today as it was in 1975, when the United States evacuated 130,000 South Vietnamese allies during the fall of Saigon and brought them to this country to start new lives. Today, as Afghan and Ukrainian migrants settle in the United States, students will explore whether refugee resettlement is better now than it was for the Vietnamese 50 years ago, and what is owed to people fleeing war, destruction and despair across the globe.

This 9-minute video illustrates how demographic trends and a changing California economy in the 1990s created a backlash against immigration, only to be followed by another swing in the ideological pendulum. This lesson examines how economic and demographic forces affect the strategies of the political parties, and demonstrates how policies like Proposition 187 can produce unintended and surprising consequences.

This 11-minute video tells the story of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, their raised-fist Black Power salute on the medal podium during the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, and the consequences they went on to face. This video shows the development of the civil rights protests of the 1960s, and how the cultural context of that decade led to a wave of protests by athletes. It illustrates how the cultural context of the 1980s caused a decline in political consciousness among athletes. Finally it addresses how recent shootings and misconduct by police officers have fueled a resurgence of athlete activism. The video includes footage and discussion of Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and O.J. Simpson. It will help students understand the complexities and challenges that black athletes face on the public stage. Students will learn how the modern take-a-knee protest movement, started by Colin Kaepernick, is directly linked to the Olympics protest in 1968.

Content Advisory:
This video contains graphic depictions of police shootings.

This 14-minute video shows students how the federal government’s botched raid on the compound of the Branch Davidian religious sect in 1993 gave rise to a nationwide militia movement of people advocating an expansive and individualistic interpretation of the Second Amendment. Students will learn how this movement included terrorists like Timothy McVeigh as well as lawful activists, many of whom continue to influence the national conversation on gun rights. Including interviews with militia activists as well as their opponents, the video provides students with context and insight on a defining cultural and political moment in the tug-of-war between individual rights and government powers. Useful for any lesson introducing Second Amendment controversies, the video illustrates why the right of individuals to own firearms remains one of the most contentious issues in American government.

Content Advisory:
This video includes footage of gun violence during a law enforcement raid that left 80 people dead.

This 11-minute video examines the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills which revealed a pattern of inconsistent oversight that environmentalists say raises questions about our preparedness for future oil spills.

What are the roles and responsibilities of government and business in preventing and responding to environmental contamination, like the two major oil spills in 1989 and 2010 in U.S. waters? What preparations and preventive measures by private industry and government could help to prevent disasters that affect coastal communities for years?

This 10-minute video delves into how the nature of Supreme Court nominations have changed since the defeat of Robert Bork. As President Biden makes his first Supreme Court nomination, he is hoping for bipartisan support for nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Recent history of Supreme Court nominations have yielded bitter battles and guarded answers from nominees on their views of important legal issues.

This 11-minute video examines how in the 1980s, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan and the shooting of his press secretary, Jim Brady, led to the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, also known as the Brady Bill. It was the first piece of legislation to mandate background checks for gun purchases, and set the stage for further regulation in the 1990s. Decades later, lawmakers and the American public continue a debate over gun control against a backdrop of continued mass shootings.

Website Description:
Teach your students about democracy with examples from the very beginning! In this lesson, students learn about Athens’s direct democracy and Rome’s republic. Students explore how these governments took shape and key features of their structure, and then try their hands at comparing and contrasting each to U.S. government today.

Student Learning Objectives:
* Describe democracy in Athens and Rome
* Differentiate between democracy and other forms of government
* Identify characteristics of direct and representative democracy
* Compare and contrast democracy in Athens and Rome to the U.S. government today
* Analyze arguments against democracy

This lesson discusses the constitutional right to petition, and how petitions have been used in American history. Students will review historical and contemporary petitions and offer ideas about how petitions might be used in their community or state.