US Government Publishing Office
Ben's Guide to u.s. Government: Constitution of the United States
Find background information on the Constitution of the United States of America, and learn the three basic principles upon which the Constitution was written. Additional content includes a look at the text of the Constitution, the events...
The Dirksen Congressional Center
Congress for Kids: Writing the Constitution
Read a short synopsis about the writing of the Constitution and then complete the crossword puzzle by clicking on the "show what you know" link.
The Dirksen Congressional Center
Dirksen Congressional Center:congress for Kids: Introduction to the Constitution
Explore the history of the United States Constitution: information about the writing the Constitution, the Great Compromise, the Constitution's signers, the Bill of Rights, the Amendments to the Constitution, federal powers, checks and...
Library of Congress
Loc: The Constitution Drafting a More Perfect Union
Set the class up for reading a primary source of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States in 1787. This lesson demonstrates the value of identifying and drafting documents the process to achieve the final document.
Quia
Quia: The Articles of Confederation and the Writing of the Constitution
Take a quiz on the Articles of Confederation and the writing of the Constitution.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Debate About Slavery
Article outlines the issues of debate over slavery and the compromises made while writing the Constitution.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: The Constitution and Slavery
Article and questions for discussion on the controveries surrounding slavery while writing the U.S. Constitution and forming a new U.S. government.
Digital History
Digital History: Writing a Constitution [Pdf]
This site is from a unit called 'Writing the US Constitution.' It looks at the documents that preceded the Constitution, and the major issues that were debated while the Constitution was being created.
Quia
Quia: Building of the Constitution
Quiz yourself on how well you know the events leading up to writing the United States Constitution.
Digital History
Digital History: The Convention
The delegates at the Constitution established strict guidelines for writing the document. Read about the general housekeeping rules, and the way they reached compromises.
Other
Portland State University: Iroquois Confederacy and the Us Constitution
A unit of study that examines the impact Native Americans had on ideas about democracy and government, and how this influenced the writing of the US Constitution. Students will compare the Iroquois Confederacy's Great Law of Peace with...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Writing in u.s. History: The Bill of Rights
Explore why the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution and its enduring impact on defining our rights. In this interactive lesson from WGBH, students develop a written argument in response to the question "How does the Bill of...
Sophia Learning
Sophia: Revising Thesis and Topic Sentences
This tutorial focuses on revising the thesis and topic sentences using two videos and two slideshows. The first video discusses a 3-step revising process for making sure the thesis fits the paper; the second video focuses on what...
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Constitutional Convention
George Washington wrote of the period between the Treaty of Paris and the writing of the Constitution that the states were united only by a "rope of sand."Disputes between Maryland and Virginia over navigation on the Potomac River led to...
Digital History
Digital History: The Founding Fathers' Motives [Pdf]
Read some historians' views about the Founding Fathers and their interests, perhaps economic, in writing the Constitution. Historians' views have changed over time, and in the suggested student exercises, students are asked to assess...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Developments in Democracy: How Women Won the Right to Vote
Thoughtful and in-depth activity-based lesson on the history of women's suffrage. Students analyze the history and evaluate the strategy used to gain the right to vote, then in small groups, write a petition to President Wilson in which...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Centralized vs Decentralized Rule: The Legacy of Alexander the Great
Resource for teachers and students. A study of government and society through a look at the legacy of Alexander the Great. Includes questions for discussion followed by activity surrounding four Hellenistic philosophies of the "good...
Digital History
Digital History: The Men of Philadelphia [Pdf]
Find short biographies of twenty-three of the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention and their ideas about government. These men were certainly not representative of the common man in the new United States, but they were...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Developments in Democracy
Learning activity in which students study the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Lesson includes individual, group and whole class activity in which students write, discuss and debate the role...
Ohio State University
Osu History Teaching Institute: Articles of Confederation vs. the u.s. Constitution
Fourth graders will be introduced to the primary documents of the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution. They will figure out the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and compare them to the US Constitution. Students...
Digital History
Digital History: A Bill of Rights? [Pdf]
There was no Bill of Rights attached to the original Constitution, but it was a topic of discussion. Read a reconstruction of speeches of delegates to the Constitutional Convention who debated for and against the inclusion of a way to...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Slavery in the American South
Article and activity in which students explore the distressful conditions of slavery in the South, answer questions based on the reading, and then participate in writing first person slave narratives for class discussion.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Reaction and Reform: Land, Liberty, and the Mexican Revolution
Activity on the Mexican Revolution in which students read the article provided, answer questions for discussion, and write an informed essay on why they think Villa or Zapata or both should or should not have become president of Mexico.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Constitutional Rights Foundation: Woodrow Wilson's Quest to Change the World
Activity in which students explore the ideas of Woodrow Wilson and his quest for peaceful world change. Through reading and writing and small group work, students discuss the relevancy of Wilson's arguments and evaluate his Fourteen Points.