Landmark Supreme Court Cases
This lesson was developed for an 8th grade Civics class and it brings together a number of our writing tools and activities. Students learn with the driving question, what makes a Supreme Court case landmark?
In groups, students review documents from six landmark cases, using our "What's the Scoop?" strategy for accessing OPVL.
In groups, students review documents from six landmark cases, using our "What's the Scoop?" strategy for accessing OPVL.
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Next, gather summaries or excerpts (think short and simple) from key court cases. You might include:
Upon completion of document review, groups had to write a clearly written, evidence-based thesis statement. Then, in order to share what they learned, each group put key information about their case on chart paper, added their poster to the wall in chronological order, and then review each other's cases using an organizer as a guide.
Another logical step would be to write another thesis statement about landmark cases more generally, including collective evidence from across the cases reviewed in class. Students could also be asked to develop an essay or given other documents for a lesser case and asked to determine why, given what they learned, that case ISN'T landmark. |
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