Most teachers of American History, Civics, or Government have to teach about Supreme Court cases. If your state is like mine (North Carolina) you have to prepare your students for roughly 100 Supreme Court cases for the End of Grade Test. Even if your state is not as court case-centric as mine, there is still Read more…

From the Westbrook classroom, a festive way to help students memorize the content and order of the Bill of Rights. Enjoy! Bill of Rights Song (to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”) The First Amendment guarantees religion, speech, and press Petition and assembly, too. The Second Amendment guarantees a right to bear arms, Read more…

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” From The American Crisis by Thomas Paine and quoted by George Washington to his Read more…

How did you celebrate today? At the National Constitution Center, Dr. Steve Frank celebrated Bill of Rights Day with a blog post tribute to the father of the Constitution, James Madison. The Washington Times wrote an editorial about Bill of Rights Day and the origins of the first ten Amendments. Other news outlets, like eSchool Read more…

Can the young people you know tell the difference between James Madison and Karl Marx? Sadly, a new national poll reveals that 42 percent of Americans wrongly attribute Marx’s famous communist slogan, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” to one of the country’s Founding documents. Nearly one in five Read more…

One of my beginning-of-school routines was to teach the guarantees of the Bill of Rights using some engaging memory devices. Bill of Rights Day, December 15, would be another great time to teach this lesson. Using a strategy I learned at a professional development conference many years ago, I had students themselves identify ten physical Read more…

We want to hear from our readers: how will you be celebrating Bill of Rights Day on December 15th? Are you planning on using our Bill of Rights Day resources, or staging your own event? Do you have your own copy of the first 10 Amendments, or do you need a copy of your own? Read more…

Should the U.S. be “scared of one guy with a laptop”? WikiLeaks’s release of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables has frustrated governments around the world, including the U.S. The Justice Department is determining whether Australian citizen Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, along with whoever gave him the secret documents, can be charged under the Read more…

As we approach Bill of Rights Day, I’m reminded of all the Founding generation fought for before, during, and after the American Revolution. I recall Ben Franklin’s admonition that the Constitution had assured us “a republic, if [we] could keep it.” Perhaps he should have said, “A republic, if you can teach it.” A key Read more…

With Bill of Rights Day drawing near, I wanted to recommend a great resources to you, one of our most popular resources. This curriculum walks through the rights protected in the Bill of Rights, including religion, expression, private property, criminal procedure, citizen juries, and more. The Bill of Rights for Real Life is designed to Read more…