Social Studies Curriculum

History/Social Sciences Electives

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Adopted January 1999

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Course Description:

The Constitution and Bill of Rights is a study of the founding principles and ideas underlying the U.S. political system. Students will examine how these important principles and ideas have worked throughout history and in the United States today.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights will explore the following questions:

• What are your Constitutional rights and responsibilities?
• What are the philosophical and historical foundations of the U.S. political system?
• How did the framers create the Constitution?
• How did the values and principles embodied in the Constitution shape American institutions and practices?
• How have the protections of he Bill of Rights been developed and expanded?
• What rights does the Bill of Rights protect?
• What are the roles of the citizen in U.S. democracy?

The course title and description have been approved by the Anchorage School Board.  This course outline is meant to serve as an example of one possibility for organizing this class.  It does not represent the only way the course may be organized.  Each course outline has been written by a different teacher so there will be differences in the approach used from one course to another.

Course Goals:

Through this course students will:

• Gain the foundation of a civic education
• Learn the relevance of the past for an understanding of the American constitutional system in the present
• Learn specific information and be able to recall and apply it to new situations and/or future conflicts
• Analyze component parts of the content, identify the relationship among the parts and synthesize to arrive at new theses or conclusions
• Evaluate the content--use as a process for choosing between competing values or principles

Course Objectives:

The student will:

• Understand the natural rights philosophy and the social contract
• Be able to identify the major ideas of republican government and constitutional government
• Be able to explain the evolution of individual rights through history, and the influence of British history on the Framers of the Constitution
• Identify the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and subsequent problems
• Explain the plan the Framers used to create the Constitution and how they provided for a limited national government and protection of the rights of the people
• Evaluate the differences between the Anti-Federalists and the Federalists and take and defend positions on those differences
• Describe the principles and rights embodied in the Constitution, and explain why the Bill of Rights was drafted
• Describe the development of the first American two-party political system
• Describe the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review and explain how the court exercises that power over the state
• Evaluate and defend different opinions on how the Constitution divides power between the national and state governments
• Describe the historical application of the Bill of Rights, and defend different positions on the Fourteenth Amendment, and incorporation as related to the expansion of individual rights
• Explain the purposes and importance of the rights protected in the Bill of Rights
• Understand the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship in a constitutional democracy
• Identify the constitutional rights issues raised by changes in American society

Course Outline:

1. The Philosophical and Historical Foundations of the American Political System
   1. Political Philosophies
      1. Natural rights philosophers, e.g., Locke
      2. Representative democracy
      3. Constitutional democracy
   2. Historical foundations
      1. Classical periods--Greece and Rome
      2. Renaissance & Reformation
   3. Development of rights in England
      1. Magna Carta
      2. Petition of Right
      3. English Bill of Rights
   4. American Revolutionary ideology and experience
2. The Framers and the Creation of the Constitution
   1. Articles of Confederation--advantages and weaknesses
   2. The Philadelphia Convention
      1. Virginia and New Jersey Plans and compromise
      2. Politics and compromises between the North and the South
      3. Creation of the executive and judicial branches
   3. Ratification of the Constitution by the people of the states
      1. Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists
      2. Bill of Rights
3. Values and Principles Embodied in the Constitution Shape American Institutions and Practices
   1. The executive and judicial branches
   2. The Bill of Rights and other protected rights in the Constitution
   3. Conflicting ideas about the power of the national government and the rise of the first two-party political system
      1. Federalists
      2. Republicans
   4. The Supreme Court and judicial review (Marbury v. Madison)
   5. The system of federalism (McCulloch v. Maryland)
4. Developments and Expansion of the Protections of the Bill of Rights
   1. The Constitution, the Civil War and the crisis of union
      1. The institution of slavery
      2. Dred Scott decision
   2. The Civil War Amendments
      1. Congress and the 14th and 15th Amendments
      2. Executive branch and the Supreme Court and civil rights
   3. The Fourteenth Amendment
      1. Definition of citizenship
      2. Due process of law
      3. Equal protection clause
   4. The Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action
5. Rights Protected by the Bill of Rights
   1. First Amendment
      1. The establishment clause
      2. The free exercise clause
      3. Free expression
      4. Freedom of petition, assembly and association
   2. Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments
      1. Procedural due process
      2. Rights of the accused
6. The Roles of the Citizen in American Democracy
   1. Citizenship in the United States
      1. Citizens
      2. Resident aliens
   2. Rights and responsibilities of citizenship
      1. Effective citizenship
      2. Participation in a representative democracy
   3. Impact of contemporary trends and developments
      1. Increasing diversity
      2. Technological advancements
      3. Globalization of world economies
   4. Influence of the American democracy on other nations
   5. Balancing the interests of society with the interests of the individual citizen

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