Students will learn about the structure of our government and some important ideas that went into creating our government.  We will look at the Constitution as a founding document and also at how ideas from Greece and Great Britain informed the development of our own system of government.

This class is a short introduction to something that impacts our lives each day.  The class will provide information in ways that meet all learners (through visuals, reading, discussion and practice) so that each student will walk away with a better understanding of our democracy.

Before class, students should read two one-page articles.

Learner progress is assessed based on responses in the chat and verbally.  Because this class is a one-time class, I will modify the class on the fly based on responses from the students.

55 minutes per week in class, and an estimated 0 - 1 hours per week outside of class.

During the class students will be introduced to the Constitution through a short video by History Illustrated and will read two articles written by me and pulling from a variety of source material including:
1.  The National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution) 
2.  The Library of Congress (https://constitution.congress.gov/).  
3.  National Geographic (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/democracy-ancient-greece/)
4.  History for kids (https://www.historyforkids.net/the-city-of-athens.html)

Students will look closely at a court case, Board of Education v. Bridget Mergens, to better understand the First Amendment and the roles of the Court and Legislature.  That source material is the transcript of the court proceeding (https://www.supremecourt.gov/pdfs/transcripts/1989/88-1597_01-09-1990.pdf) and analysis by The First Amendment Encyclopedia (https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/661/board-of-education-of-the-westside-community-schools-v-mergens).  

An additional source is Alexis de Toqueville's book, "Democracy in America".