Profiles of the Framers

Ever wish your class could travel back in time and witness the making of the Constitution firsthand? This plan makes the classroom come pretty close. Eighth graders simulate the process of creating a constitution and design their own...

Did the United States Constitution uphold the institution of slavery, or did it help to destroy it? Young historians study Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution and evaluate the rights of slaveowners as they compared to or...

Students engage in a role-playing situation to illustrate the kinds of compromised that were made a teh Constitutional Convention. They write three short 1-2 paragraph arguments and then present their arguments to the class at the...

Supreme Court justices debate the meaning of the US Constitution, but we expect teachers to explain it to scholars with far less training and experience. A daunting task for sure, but it's not insurmountable with resources that simplify...

How difficult was it to get everyone to agree on the contents of the Constitution? Historians analyze the task of the Founding Fathers in creating the United States Constitution. They research a directory of video clips, primary sources,...

Twelfth graders go through the process of writing a classroom constitution and then compare their process to that followed by the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

Students view a PowerPoint presentation based on the framers of the Constitution. Students create notes on each of the delegates featured. Using their notes, they write a paragraph on the Constitutional Convention delegate they believe...

See transcripts of the debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, the draft of the Constitution, or see the facsimiles of the original documents. Trace the progress of the Constitution using the historical documents themselves.

Today we kick off our 56-day series of biographies of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. This constitution was to replace the Articles of Confederation. [1 min. 10 secs.]

Eighth graders discover details about delegates to the American Constitutional Convention. In this U.S. Constitution instructional activity, 8th graders research information about 9 delegates to the convention and then write paragraphs...