Private Matters

The Bill of Rights is much more than an important piece of paper! The rights cover everything from freedom of speech to the right to remain silent if arrested. Scholars find out their own rights by answering the questions in the form of...

The fourth in a five-lesson unit examining human rights and personal responsibility asks class groups to investigate a current rights issue, and using the provided graphic organizer, summarize the issue, consider which rights are being...

Did you know that lawmakers have proposed more than 5,000 bills to amend the US Constitution in Congress? Your class learns intriguing facts about the process of choosing amendments. A variety of activities including before and after...

If aliens invaders nearly destroy the world in the distant future and leaders must decide on a pamphlet of protections to preserve individual rights, what should they include? Introduce the Bill of Rights and the struggle between the...

Investigate milestones along the path that lead to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. After researching key people, events, court cases, and legislative orders, teams present their findings as a magazine, newspaper, or...

Did you know that there are 15.2 million refugees in the world? High schoolers will read "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and learn how they can get involved to lower this surprising number. To really encourage involvement,...

Provide your class with an opportunity to investigate an important historical document. Without identifying the document, distribute copies of the original Bill of Rights, as transcribed by John Beckley, Clerk of the House of...

How has the American Bill of Rights influenced the rest of the world? An interactive web activity helps individuals see the similarities between countries' bills of rights. A text-to-text tool compares the American Bill of Rights to...

Did you know that the Bill of Rights was not added to the US Constitution until three years after the Constitution was adopted? This short video explains why these fundamental protections for individual liberties were added as the first...