Teaching the Constitution with BRI Resources Remote Training | Constitution Day 2025

0:04 Hello everybody. Hope you’re doing well and uh you’re not too tired from the school day. And um we’re going to learn a little bit about Constitution Day and some of the resources that BARRI has to offer. And uh this is this is about looking at the resources at BARRI but also uh sharing

0:27 resources and sharing ideas that you have because uh we have a lot of experience in this room. You have a lot of experience teaching. So the idea is to get a bunch of ideas and for you to walk away with uh you know something you can use on constitution day and uh beyond the whole school year. And if you teach the constitution or government, uh there’s plenty of resources at uh BARRI

0:49 for you to use. And my name is Don Jenkins. Uh I’ve been a teacher for 30 plus years. I started off in Illinois for four years. That’s where I grew up. And then I moved out to Washington State uh about 25 years ago.

1:10 And I’ve been a teacher out here. And now I I teach online and I am working full-time for the Bill of Rights Institute uh as a manager of program partnerships focusing on the Pacific Northwest, but uh really it’s the whole country. And I graduated from Southern Illinois University and I got my masters at Western Washington.

1:32 And last year I had a unique and cool experience. I was a teacher all over Norway. Uh, I was part of the Fulbright Roving Scholar and American Studies program and I got to go into schools and I probably put on 25,000 miles by planes, trains, automobiles, fairies and it was a fantastic experience. And if

1:56 you have any questions or things that you want to know more about after this session, my email is down here. Uh, djenkins.org or and feel free to email me anytime you want or if you’re looking for a particular resource uh we can help you find it. Okay. And

2:17 we have Lori here also. She’s going to help out with the chat and uh step in whenever she feels like she has something to add. Um and I’ll let her introduce herself a little bit. >> Hi everybody. It’s good to see some familiar faces this evening. Um my name is Lori Ruck. I’m the manager of uh teacher programs at the Bill of Rights Institute. Uh my technical title still

2:40 has regional, but as Don pointed out, my region is the United States. Uh I am uh speaking to you tonight from Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska is where I live. And um I have a career as a 33-year veteran teacher. I retired. As you can tell, my retirement did not last long because,

3:00 well, I need things to do. and I absolutely love working with the Bill of Rights Institute. First I did it as a contract employee and now full-time as manager. Uh if you have any questions, you can always um you know look for Don’s email, you can look at mine uh email is on this slide as well. Please reach out to us with any questions you

3:22 have. If we don’t know the answer, we certainly will find them for you, especially with con uh Constitution Day resources. All right, I will turn it back over to you, Don. >> Okay, now I’d like to uh learn a little bit about you. I can see your names uh up there, so you can uh skip that part if you want. Uh but I’m curious as to where you’re from, what state, if you

3:43 want to put the district, you can put that. Uh what grade or grades do you teach? Uh or anything else that you want to uh share. And that uh also might help us to kind of narrow down uh some resources for you to use. And uh I see Anaise has a question in the chat. Um and yes, you will be uh getting a copy

4:05 of the slide deck. There’s going to be lots of links in there that I’m going to show you um that uh you can use in your class. So if you can just uh we’re going to be using the chat a little bit. So if you can just uh type your answers in the chat, uh please do that now. All right. This is our vision and mission for the Bill of Rights Institute.

4:28 And um we seek an America where we more perfectly realize the promise of liberty and equality expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And uh you know we are all about civic education and history education. We want students to examine um our history and the story of our country but we also want them to become good citizens and

4:51 active citizens. So we have a lot of uh lessons and a lot of projects and a lot of things that go along with kids being active citizens and developing uh those skills too. And our mission is to teach history and civics and to help teachers teach history and civics. And uh we want students to learn those ideals uh in the

5:12 constitution and uh live those ideals uh in a free and just society. These are some of the promises that uh we uh have and uh that we u try to live up to those. There’s lots of them. Um teaching America’s founding

5:34 principles, fostering an understanding of government. Some of these are fact-based, some of them are skill-based, some of them are virtues. So, I’d like for you to take just a moment to look those over and uh just type in one or if you want to unmute, you can say it or if you’re driving, don’t worry about it. Um, which one resonates with you? Which one do you

5:55 think maybe is most important or which one is uh something that you have focused on in your classes with your students um over the years? So, here are some of our founding principles. And I’m sure you’re familiar with a lot of these. Uh, you may notice

6:17 that it starts in the bottom left and the arrows kind of go up to the right. Um, a lot of these are connected to the Constitution. You could uh do a Constitution Day on separation of powers, uh, due process, um, natural and inalienable rights found in the declaration. So these founding principles are easily connected to

6:38 things you do in a government class or a civics class. Um all very essential. A lot of kids um what I’ve found in my classes, they really like to talk about the Bill of Rights. Um but then you can also connect that to responsibilities when you talk about the rights they have um under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So, um that’s something that

7:00 um I focused on a lot when I was uh when I was teaching government and civics. All right. So, here are some of the virtues and vices um that um we connect our resources to. You can see there’s a long list of virtues and from what I understand um the vices section was

7:20 added um a number of years ago. So often times the lessons are uh asking students to look at some of these virtues and you can look at some of the framers of the constitution and you could connect uh some of the framers and what they did in creating the constitution to um these lists and uh then you can connect it to today too uh some of our leaders in the

7:42 past few years. Um, it’s definitely a good exercise in uh discussion taking a look at these virtues and vices. And this link, you don’t have to uh you get your phone out now, but this just links to this uh um these founding principles and virtues and vices. So, you’ll have this on your uh on your

8:03 slide. And again, if you have any questions, just pop them into the chat and Lori and I will help you out. Uh Lori put in suggestions for you, James. So, one of the one of the lessons that you can use uh for the Constitution, and I’m not exactly sure what the scope and sequence is in um Maryland or in

8:23 Pennsylvania for um what you’re teaching, but uh you can uh definitely connect uh this particular uh lesson to the Constitution and we’ll talk a little bit about that. And then we’ll talk a little bit about the constitutional resources that um are on the Bill of Rights Institute web page and uh and

8:43 beyond that too. There’s so many so many different resources. So, one thing I like to do is to um start off with images in my classes and I think that really gets students um hooked into wanting to learn more. So, I’m sure you’ve used this before, but if you take a look at this image,

9:05 and sometimes I’ll have I’ll do this as a class, sometimes I’ll put it in Google Classroom or another LMS, and I’ll just or I’ll have kids talk about it together in pairs of two or three. Um, so if you take a look at this image here, uh, just pop in an answer really quick on the chat. Uh, what do you notice about the people? What are they doing? What else do you

9:25 notice? So, just quickly pop in an answer or two uh to that. And you’ll notice on the slides that um I have these linked to the resources on the Bill Rice Institute. So, if they’re underlined uh when you get the slide deck, then you can uh click on them and go right there.

9:49 So, this is this is a great exercise to start off the lesson. Uh, and then once you uh go to the lesson and the uh the lessons, they have different parts to them and they might suggest like 90 minutes for the lesson, but you can kind of just pick and choose um you know which parts you want to use depending on how much time you have. You know, just

10:10 like any any good teacher, you know your classes best and you know what will work with them and won’t what what won’t work with them and you can modify them, you know, as needed. Ah, stoic, that’s a good word. And one thing I did, I taught language arts for one year. U I was volunte. Um and you could just have them come up

10:31 with one word. What’s one word that you know you would use to describe what’s going on or the demeanor of the people there. So stoic is a good one. >> So this is a Elizabeth Eford lesson and uh there’s different parts to it. There’s uh the essential vocabulary

10:53 there. There’s a a short um short reading and some of the readings um you know you can modify them. You may have used u you know AI or chat GPT to to take text and then modify it to the reading level of your students. So that’s a suggestion that uh you know I might use in my classes. Uh some of the

11:15 readings might be for high school. So, don’t be scared about using high school resources that we have. Um, feel free to modify those to a reading level that’s appropriate for your um for your students. So, this uh is a particular virtue of courage and uh you could delve into courage and then you could connect it to

11:37 um other courageous time periods in our history. You could connect it to um the constitution. Does anybody know how this would connect to the Constitution perhaps? How would you maybe use this on Constitution Day or later on in the school year if you’re talking about um particular times of

11:57 history or government? Anybody uh know what the connection is? Anybody want to venture a guess? How could you connect uh this particular lesson? I know you haven’t seen the lesson, but uh what might be your guess as to how you might use this um on Constitution Day or what’s the

12:19 connection to the Constitution that you could make with the students? Or maybe you could have them come up with the connection too. Any ideas? I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with a particular court case, maybe.

12:43 All right. I’ve given my >> So, are you looking for the principal or principal of the constitution or a or a court case? >> Yes. Could be either one. You know, there’s lots of connections you could make with the students. There’s that’s the main court core case. >> Yeah, because court case that’s exactly where I was going too

13:04 >> with that. >> And then the equal protect. Yeah. stealing my answers. >> Do you Did you uh were you thinking of any other principles, James, uh that you could connect it with? >> This was something I discovered just an hour ago on the the website uh on the Barri website. There are landmark uh

13:25 Supreme Court cases. I don’t know, uh, Lori, how much you’ve done with this, but I really, you know, I I really, if I was in the classroom, I would use these on Constitution Day or when we’re talking about the Constitution. If you just have a day and you want something quick and easy that it’s no prep, I would take a look at these

13:47 landmark Supreme Court cases. A lot of them connect with students lives also and um they’re quick and easy where students can just read the summary. They can summarize them in their own words. You could have students work in groups. Um you could even have them draw pictures. Um but these are scenario cards. And I think there was 10 of the

14:08 Supreme Court cases, 10 of the landmark Supreme Court cases on this particular handout that would be excellent to use uh in your classes. And there is a link right here that uh when you get the uh when you get the slideshow, just click on it and it should take it uh to the BRRI um lesson

14:29 for that and the handout. >> Don, is that from our being an American? >> I am not sure if it is or not. >> The the formatting is different. I know that they’ve been updating some of the lessons. Um, but it it’s very similar to what we have in being an American. And

14:50 if you’ll notice, it it really makes students um, you know, look at the summary of the case, but but what happened in 10 words or less can be so powerful because students can’t go on and on and and get lost in all of the court case. They really have to get to the essence of what is being discussed. And so this would be um like Don said,

15:13 something that that is not a long drawn out activity like maybe a DBQ. This is something where students could do it in a relatively short amount of time. If it’s not from our being an American in that there’s also Supreme Court scenarios on the Bill of Rights and students have to uh decide how the case

15:35 was decided without reading the case. and then they go in and they look at the decision afterwards. And so it’s it’s a way for students to really think about how the how the constitution and in that case the bill of what in the bill of rights uh speaks to a particular court case. So we have a couple of resources

15:56 in this and uh Don is right on point. These are not long activities which are nice to do on Constitution Day for example. >> And there I think there’s 10 of them. So you could divide them up into groups too and then students could present. Um so that’s another option too. Um like James was uh mentioning you could even you

16:16 know modify it. You could have them uh do hashtags here. So you know there’s definitely lots of ways you can um modify it to to fit what you’re doing in your class. Does anybody have any questions on that? Just pop it into the chat and uh we will try to talk about it. A little bit about the website. We’ve got uh 6,000 resources. Uh BARRI

16:39 has been around for 25 years, so they’re uh the uh content team is constantly creating new things. Uh we’ve got a new middle school curriculum. Uh high school curriculum is uh fairly new also. Um, so there’s lots lots to choose from and lots to um implement in your classes.

17:00 This is uh what the website uh looks like when you go to the mybrrii.org. And you might notice at the bottom here, there’s lots of links you can click on. There’s uh lessons and there’s videos, but then there’s also some different

17:21 things here. So, there’s one thing called Think the Vote, which I’ll talk about a little bit later. It’s more current events. Uh and then there’s a my impact challenge, which is a civics’s uh education uh project that students can engage in, and I’ll talk a little bit about that um later on. So, I would definitely check uh those different

17:42 links out. And I’m going to give you a little time here uh to explore. And let’s take a look here. Educator tab at the top is a good place to start because then it divides it into middle school, high school, elementary. Uh I didn’t see anybody teaching elementary here, but we do have a elementary curriculum also that uh you can check

18:03 out. And when you click on the educator hub, this is what you’ll see. Um there’s also professional development uh like we have now. So if you’re looking for uh other online remote trainings, that’s the place to go.

18:24 And you can do searches. So, if you just type in the search box, if you just type in uh something like scenarios, you uh probably will find I think there was 10 or 12 different uh links that came up when I was search for that. If you’re looking for something on the First Amendment, type it in and see what comes up. So, that’s a great place to

18:46 start. Also, if you’re looking for something specific on a person or a topic um or uh an idea, you know, search around, that’s a good place to start. You can create an account, too. Um if you don’t create an account, you still have access to 99% I think 99.9% of the things on there. Um

19:09 you don’t get the answer keys and then you cannot create uh a library. Is that correct, Lori? Are those the only two things you can’t do? >> You can’t create playlists and libraries or or answer keys where we have them. >> Yeah. Okay. So, let’s uh talk a little bit about con

19:29 constitution day resources uh from the Bill of Rights. Uh the team has put together um some curated lists of things that you can check out. There’s lessons and videos and there’s viewing guides. Um they just uh published a civics on the street video where an expert answers student questions. Um there’s an

19:50 amendments primary source essentials video and then I believe on the 17th itself there’s going to be an interview um about federalism with an expert. So if we take a look if you just type in constitution day on the uh search bar it’ll come up with those resources for each level.

20:14 So let’s uh see what you you have done for constitution day um or in a constitution lesson or anything connected to the constitution. Um you guys already shared some great ideas on um you know how to use some of these things or what you would do. Um, but just quickly type in one thing that you’ve done on Constitution Day or maybe

20:35 one lesson or one idea that uh everybody else might be able to use in their class before we dive into some of the uh resources in uh at Barri. And while you do that, I am going to

20:59 go to the Constitution Day. So, can you see the Constitution Day website now at the BR Barri? So, this is the Constitution Day um website page, I guess, on the Barri website.

21:23 And here are some of the resources. Civics on the street constitution day constitution amendments video. Here’s the remote training which you are currently in. And this will be premiering in a couple

21:45 days. Democracy in action and the federalism interview will be on the 17th. And then there is on the 17th a mini doc documentary on the constitutional convention. And then if you scroll down a little bit you can see the resources

22:05 for the high school. These are not all of them. There are lots more resources on this for sure. And then the middle school are down here. And then elementary are down there.

22:27 All right. So, let’s talk about some ideas for your uh for your classroom. So, with the federalism interview, if you uh had students watch that, there’s an activity called agree or disagree. And I’ve got the link right here again. And if you look at the handout, uh this is another uh activity where students,

22:49 this is really quick and easy. Um but it can lead to a lot of discussion. So you can see the example of the uh the questions there or the statements. The national government can enact laws banning guns from schools. So can have students decide if they think it’s true or false and then explain the

23:09 reasoning. You could have them do this in groups. Um you could do it as a whole class. Start off with an example as a whole class, then break them into groups to kind of give them model it. Um, so, uh, this has a lot of potential to lead to a lot of discussion on the powers the states have, the powers the federal government has, and maybe the powers

23:29 they should have or maybe some disagreements because we know it’s not uh, clear-cut. There’s always disagreements and court cases about who has the power to do what and then you could tie it into current events, too. So, this has a lot of uh, potential for Constitution Day also.

23:54 And the preamble cards uh is another quick and easy um activity you could do. You could have students read the preamble of the Constitution. Uh, you could use these preamble cards and they can summarize what it means or they can come up with an example or you could have them draw a quick image or a

24:15 hashtag um for each of the uh the principles found in the preamble. So these uh these preamble cards, you know, you can have them take a a deep dive into the preamble, but then you can also connect this when you’re done with this activity, maybe take 10, 15 minutes, but

24:36 then you can connect this with think the vote and you could have them find current events on think the vote that connect with one of those principles, establish justice um or whatever it is that they think is important. So these are some examples

24:56 from previous debates from last year and students can go to think the vote. I think it’s every is it every two weeks or every week they have a question. Lori, are you do you know? >> Um I think it’s every two weeks. >> Every two weeks. Okay. and you can they can still look at the past um debates, but they can’t vote anymore

25:19 and they can win uh prizes and I think there’s a bigger prize at the end when they’re all done. Um so you can see some examples here that connect directly to the constitution. Uh the electoral college, should the US reform its birthright, citizenship laws, um historical statutes, you know, that was a hot topic. um still kind of is, but

25:41 it’s not just answering the question with their opinion. There’s articles that are given that they have to look at and they have to justify their opinion with um evidence and reasoning from those articles. Um, and even though these are not they can’t put their answers on the website, you could easily

26:04 do this in Google Classroom and um take your own vote uh in your class with this. Um, so even though it’s not live anymore for last year um questions, you can still definitely incorporate it into your class. And here is actually the first question of

26:25 the year. And you might think it’s silly, but this will get students attention and then they can take a dive into some more deeper constitutional questions um as the year goes on or current events questions. So, and again, they actually have articles here that

26:45 students can look at. USDA, Ruth Bader Ginsburg even weighed in and the National Hot Dog Council. So, um, I got to believe this would be a highinterest question to start off the year. Um, even though it might not directly be related to the Constitution,

27:05 they’ll probably be asking to do more of these questions. Does anybody have any questions on uh think the votes? Just looking at the chat here really

27:26 quick. Okay. All right. So, here’s another uh another potential idea that I’ve used in my classes before. Um Tinker vers De Moine. Uh this is a well-known court case having to do with students rights. That’s one of the reasons I use it because students are

27:47 very interested in their rights and what they can wear, what they can say, what they can do at school. And a lot of them don’t realize a lot of that is grounded in Supreme Court decisions. So again, I would start off with maybe this picture and just post the picture and have students write down what they see, what do they

28:08 think is going on, what’s happening in that picture. And then you can uh take a deeper dive. This uh you know again you can use this lesson. There’s lots of uh activities on Tinker versus De Moine. There’s lots of documents. You can see this is document K. So if you want to spend several days on this, you could.

28:28 If you just want to spend one day on it, you could. So this definitely has a lot of potential to be a longer u longer lesson too. And you see I have linked here to the constitutional amendment playlist. There is a playlist on the constitutional amendments. And if you go to I’m going

28:48 to share my screen here again and do a little search on the website. So if I just type in constitution playlists, let’s see what comes up.

29:08 So here’s a US Constitution Amendments playlist. Constitutional amendments playlist. Here’s primary sources on the slavery in the US Constitution. So, just doing a simple search, you know, you got all these different resources um at your disposal.

29:41 And here’s another scenario. So, this comes uh from the scenario-based learning. There’s a lot more activities on the scenario-based learning. So, if you this is something you’re interested in, and the kids really like these because they get to give their own opinion, but they have to back it up. Um it’s not just their opinion, they have to back it up with reasoning and evidence. And that’s what I really like about the scenario-based learning. So,

30:02 just do a basic search. I’ve also got a link here to uh some of the scenarios and some of the lessons connected to the scenarios. There we go. Somehow it skipped ahead a little bit,

30:23 but here we go. Um, here’s another idea uh for a lesson. You can compare the Declaration of Independence. So, if you’ve studied the Declaration of Independence before the Constitution, you can connect that with the preamble. Uh, and this is a great lesson. I think Lori’s uh mentioned this before in previous uh workshops and uh this works

30:43 really well um for students also. And I I like that one because it’s a great way to connect two of our founding documents, too. Um here’s a couple more playlists that are connected to the Constitution and to current events and to recent events. Um the point counterplay uh point playlist is awesome

31:04 also. Um and it has um you know the multiple viewpoints we were talking about earlier. So they have uh basically two experts. One gives one side, one gives the other side. Students have to look at those uh those readings and then they kind of have to draw out the evidence and reasoning from those uh two

31:24 different sides and then they can come up with their own uh viewpoint um with um with what’s presented. So, I really love the uh point counterpoint point and a lot of these are connected to the uh constitution, the peaceful trans transition of power. Um, so that’s one of them. There’s 22

31:45 items on the elections playlist. And then if you want to delve into uh slavery and whether the constitution was a pro-slavery uh document, there’s a point counterpoint for that. And then I like to use I I like to use a lot of cartoons. Uh that really gets kids attention. And you could use this

32:06 one if you’re studying Andrew Jackson or just if you’re studying the power of the presidency um and connect that to the Constitution. Uh this one’s kind of uh unique because it’s interactive and students can uh click on the different uh searches right here, the different magnifying glasses, and it’ll give more information about what they’re looking at. But just the

32:27 process of having them look at the uh political cartoon uh and deciding what they see or what they think is important. And then you can see the guiding question over here, place for them to take notes. And then I’ve got the link up here. And then if you just have a day, I know a lot of us just have a day. You know,

32:47 these are just my suggestions, so take it for what it’s worth. But I really like the Tinker versus De Moine. Um, I would use for middle school, uh, the political cartoons I just showed you. And then there’s one called Congressional Pugilist cartoon where they’re fighting from, and it’s not from 2025, it’s from the early 1800s. So, um,

33:10 you know, a lot of students don’t realize how contentious Congress was um, in the past. It’s not just a today thing when everybody is arguing and and fighting. So, in an elementary school, uh there’s a great video and then there’s the my classroom constitution which you can do at any level where um students basically write their own

33:31 constitution. They will write their own rules for the classroom. And I know a lot of teachers actually start off the school year with that. If you got extra time, um you can do a model house of representatives where students uh come up with their own bill and try to get it passed. Um this can be very very powerful uh for students to uh

33:52 understand checks and balances, separation of powers, how government needs to work together, how the political parties need to work together. So if you do have extra time um and you have weeks, you can do a model house of representatives. I’ve even done a modification of this where I just do it in a class period where students write

34:13 quick bills. We divide up into representatives and senators. I even have one student play a president and then they vote on their bills. Um, so you can do a a quick version of this, too. All right, looks like we have a little bit of time. I want to give you a few minutes to browse the the website or uh

34:39 and to see what you might use or you can use the suggestions that I gave you too. But if you go to the mybrrii.org and just do a search or check out some of the lessons that I’ve uh suggested for you. Um take a few minutes to do that. This is also a good time to maybe

35:00 ask some questions if you have them. uh or if you’re looking for a particular resource, we can direct you in that uh in that way to the website and then just answer any or all these questions um in the next 5 to 10 minutes. What resource will you use for Constitution Day and beyond from the BARRI website? What do

35:21 you like about the lesson? How would you modify it? Like for example, for special education classes, would you modify it? How you how would you modify it? and then just type in uh your answers in the chat. Or if you just want to unmute, feel free to just unmute and uh let us know. And this will give the other teachers in the uh chat some ideas, too,

35:43 that maybe they didn’t think of.