TITLE:     REORGANIZING THE BILL OF RIGHTS

AUTHOR:   Scott Wallace, South Valley Middle School,
          Platteville,CO.

GRADE LEVEL:  8TH GRADE

OVERVIEW:  This lesson is a culminating activity to be used
at the end of a unit on the Bill of Rights.  It allows my
students to become aware of the main ideas and importance of
the remaining 16 amendments not covered in class.  I have
used this lesson as an individual writing assignment, but
find it much more effective and fun  used as an in-class
activity.

PURPOSE:  The purpose of the activity is to ask students to
look critically at the 26 amendments.  Are some more
important than others?  Can we live without some of them? Do
some of them address similar issues?

OBJECTIVES:  By the end of the activity, the students will;

a) be able to identify the topics of amendments not
   covered in class.
b) Compare and contrast topics covered in the 26
   amendments and group them according to similar topics.
c) Evaluate amendments in terms of importance to their
   daily lives or to the  everyday function of the
   government.

RESOURCES/MATERIALS:  textbook that contains all 26
amendments.

ACTIVITIES:
1)   After covering the first ten amendments in class in
     previous lessons, inform the students that they will be
     role-playing a Constitutional Convention that has been
     charged with reorganizing the 26 amendments back to 10.
2)   Break class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Tell each
     group that they may reorganize in any way that they
     want.  They may delete amendments that currently exist,
     combine amendments that have similar topics, or
     introduce new amendments.  Allow groups at least one
     class period to work on their task.
3)   After the small groups have completed their task, bring
     the class back together. Each group then introduces
     their proposal.
4)   The class is then given time for informal debate and
     discussion over the various proposals.  At this point
     the large group must formally debate and vote on the
     amendments they want to keep.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER:  After the students finish their
debate and vote, open class up for discussion over their
feelings as to how things went.  You will find that their
will have been quite a bit of disagreement as to what's
important and what isn't.