The Bill of Rights and the News

Consider how America's founding fathers and their experiences contributed to the rights we all enjoy today. A collection of reading, writing, and collaborative exercises prompt high schoolers to think about the ways their current lives...

Examine the Bill of Rights through the lens of fairness. Class members read all 10 amendments and then answer a series of questions related to the document and surrounding ideas.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Scholars investigate news literacy in the twenty-first century. They use technology, legal decisions, writings, and digital privacy to analyze the topic. Using what they learned, a group assignment looks...

Prompted by a viewing of Emiko and Chizu Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon, a documentary about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, high schoolers examine a series of documents, including the Bill of Rights and the UN’s...

Students determine how free press principles can be compromised. For this global studies lesson, students read an article titled "Free and Independent Press." Students respond to discussion questions regarding the article.

The Bill of Rights is an important part of the US Constitution. Have small groups translate the amendments into modern language and present their versions, as well as the original versions, to the class. In groups, learners also respond...

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;. . ." Why is this guarantee of free speech and a free press the First Amendment to the US Constitution? Why are these rights so essential to a democracy?...

Students consider First Amendment rights. In this Bill of Rights activity, students complete an activity guide regarding constitutional rights issues raised in the 2008 presidential election. Students respond to discussion questions...

To conclude their case study of media coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, class members consider the role of citizen watchdogs in a democratic society, develop strategies for combating...

Students use library or online resources to create time lines on the life of Johannes Gutenberg and tell the impact his invention, the printing press, had on the development of newspapers.