The flag of the United States, before the Holiday Bowl football game in 2008. Today, we had an interesting mock trial on saying the Pledge of Allegiance in class.
Hi everyone,
I really enjoyed the discussions and debates the the mock trials brought up today, and I had the sense that most students did, too. Here's what happened today in class:
Learning Targets Addressed:
Knowledge LT 5: I can demonstrate an understanding of the principles, structures, and functions of different levels of U.S. government.
Soundtrack: "Ordinary People" by John Legend. Selected for today because ordinary people really did start these Supreme Court cases that we learned about the past couple of days! Lyrics here.
AGENDA 5/6/15:
News Brief – Aldo
Mock Trials
The National Judiciary
Work Time
Homework: Read the blog. Get any late work in ASAP to improve your grade. Next news brief (no write up needed, just talk about it): Courtney.
News Brief: Aldo had the news brief today and talked about this story: CNN.com - Texas attacker tweeted with overseas terrorists. We discussed how the First Amendment really gives people the right to say or do things that many people would really disagree with - in this case, drawing cartoons of the Muhammad, which many Muslims see as an extremely offensive act. This case resulted in two gunmen being killed.
I also talked about this ridiculous story, of some people believing that the U.S. government is seriously about to take over the state of Texas: CNN.com - Pentagon: No Texas takeover plot. The Governor of Texas is actually assigning National Guard troops to watch our own military! Umm, yeah, we are not taking over Texas.
Courtney was assigned to do the next news brief (although she doesn't need to write this next one up, she does have to turn in a current event write up at some point).
Mock Trials: The first part of class was taken up by doing the mock trials for the two cases we had left from last class. We had a really excellent discussion on the issues: drug searches at school and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in class. It was good to hear all the different thoughts and perspectives, as well as see how the Supreme Court actually ruled! Please complete the rest of your mock trial packet! The case summaries I linked to might help with understanding the cases better.
The National Judiciary: I did pass out this handout, so students could read and review them to prepare for the upcoming test. I will see how it goes next class with going through these, but the test will be on this reading, as well as the Supreme Court cases that we have been studying.
I also talked about this ridiculous story, of some people believing that the U.S. government is seriously about to take over the state of Texas: CNN.com - Pentagon: No Texas takeover plot. The Governor of Texas is actually assigning National Guard troops to watch our own military! Umm, yeah, we are not taking over Texas.
Courtney was assigned to do the next news brief (although she doesn't need to write this next one up, she does have to turn in a current event write up at some point).
Mock Trials: The first part of class was taken up by doing the mock trials for the two cases we had left from last class. We had a really excellent discussion on the issues: drug searches at school and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in class. It was good to hear all the different thoughts and perspectives, as well as see how the Supreme Court actually ruled! Please complete the rest of your mock trial packet! The case summaries I linked to might help with understanding the cases better.
The National Judiciary: I did pass out this handout, so students could read and review them to prepare for the upcoming test. I will see how it goes next class with going through these, but the test will be on this reading, as well as the Supreme Court cases that we have been studying.
Please keep working on this! Sound good? Let me know if you have any questions I can answer! Thanks again for an enjoyable class this morning! :-)
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