The First and Second Amendments - Class Recap

I happened to be in Washington D.C. in 2010 when President Obama's healthcare bill was advancing through Congress. There were a lot of angry protesters outside the Capitol, using their First Amendment rights!

Hi everyone,

We had some good discussions today, looking at the first two amendments to the United States Constitution. Here's what happened:

Learning Targets Addressed:

Communication LT 5: I can communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
Knowledge LT 1: I can demonstrate an understanding of the interplay between citizens and their governments.
Knowledge LT 2: I can demonstrate an understanding of the role of governments in current issues.

Soundtrack: “Don't Speak" by No Doubt. Selected because today we talked about the First Amendment, which gives the freedom of speech as a right. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/7/14:
News Brief - Jocelyn
First Amendment
Tinker v. Des Moines
Second Amendment

Homework: Read the blog! Next news brief: Logan.
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News Brief: Jocelyn had the news brief today and selected this article to talk about: CNN.com - High court refuses to rule -- and gives tacit victory -- on same-sex marriage. This was a super interesting story that happened yesterday - with at least 5 (and possibly up to 11) states now having legal same sex marriage, due to the United States Supreme Court declining to rule on lower court cases that gave same sex couples those rights. We talked about how this is made possible by the Constitution and the process for judicial review. Really interesting discussion! Logan was selected next for the news brief.

First Amendment:  To start this section, I showed this clip from The Daily Show, looking at what some people working for FOX News had to say in regards to the Bill of Rights and the Boston Marathon bomber:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

I handed out a worksheet that had a few questions about what students thought about different aspects of the First Amendment. For instance, should burning the US flag be allowed? We debated our answers as a class. After this, we tried to identify what the most crucial part to the First Amendment is. Was it freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, or petition?

Tinker v. Des Moines: This is a famous U.S. Supreme Court case about freedom of speech at school. Ultimately, the justices decided 7-2 that the students protesting the Vietnam War by wearing armbands were within their rights to do so. A summary of the case can be found here.

As part of this section, we also talked about the flag burning case of Texas v. Johnson. A recap of that, which found that burning the flag was a protected form of speech, can be found here.

Second Amendment: This was just an overview of the debate surrounding Second Amendment rights, which mostly have to do with gun laws. At the end of class, we started looking at the political spectrum, which was the first few slides of this PowerPoint:

Google Drive - Political Spectrum PowerPoint

Next class, we will finish this and then talk about the rest of the Bill of Rights, including an analysis of the Jay Z song "99 Problems." See you then!