Rebecca Smith, Student Teacher, Fall 2013

8th Grade U.S. Civics and Economics

Unit 5: Foundations of Our Government

Lesson 1, Part 3 of the Unit, Day 3 of the Unit

1st Block-Standard (12 students)

1. TITLE: Three Rings of Government: Zeroing in on Articles I-III

2. VSOL STANDARDS ADDRESSED:

Skills:

Examine and interpret primary and secondary documents (CE.1a)

Create and explain diagrams, tables, and charts. (CE.1b)

Content:

CE.2

The student will demonstrate knowledge of the American constitutional government at the national level by

a)describing the structure and powers of the national government.

3. CONTENT SUMMARY/RELEVANCE:

The content of this lesson is based around the questions of: What is the overall structure of the U.S. Constitution? How does it set up our system of government? Where can you find what each branch does within the document? Students will already have background knowledge about the Constitution from the previous unit on the foundations of our government and their knowledge of the preamble, which they have to memorize and recite for us during this unit (it’s due by 9/25). Part 3 of lesson 1, which is today’s piece, focuses on the overall picture of the 3 branches of government and what their primary purpose/function and basic structure entails. They have already touched on this in past units and in learning about the structure and articles in parts 1 and 2 of lesson 1. The other know’s in the standard CE.6a that are not listed below in the objectives will be covered in-depth later in the unit when we go over the specific branches in each lesson.

The Constitution can be made very relatable to students of all ages, because many of them have interacted with the basic rights, freedoms, and protections the document offers, either directly or indirectly. Also, the structures outlined shape not only the federal government, but many other governmental organizations such as their Study Council Association. There are usually people who carry out the powers that are grouped according to executive, legislative, and judicial tasks. The positions usually reflect these powers. Our goal for this lesson is to show students that the Constitution is still very relevant to them today; we want to emphasize to them that as citizens of the United States they should be aware of not only their basic rights in the B.O.R. section of the Constitution’s amendments, but also the Constitution’s layout for the government that runs their lives right now. To interact with something and be engaged or even effect change one must first understand the system itself. In general and like last unit, we want to students to gain the understanding that a document written over 230 years ago is still relevant to their lives, and can still be adapted and changed to reflect the trends and currents of the present day.

According to iCivics.org, the Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the WORLD that is still being used today. This lesson is also relevant to students in terms of furthering students’ key SOL (and life) skills, such as analyzing both visual and written material (including a primary source), interacting with foundational documents, and putting their own thoughts and ideas into words.

4. OBJECTIVES:

Essential Questions:

•What is the structure of the national government as set out in the United States Constitution?

•What are the powers of the national government?

•Students will Understand:

•Power requires balance (course objective)

•Structures are installed to help balance power so that powers are split and one entity does not hold all the power and risk abusing it.

•Students will Know:

The Constitution of the United States defines the structure and powers of the

national government.*

•A table of contents or owner’s manual helps to organize and allows us to synthesize a lot of information (lesson 1)

•Separation of powers means that each branch of the government has separate jobs.

◦How to express their opinions in writing and discussion (from previous classes)

◦How to effectively synthesize content knowledge into visual diagrams

◦The Constitution details the structures and powers of each of the three branches of the national government in Articles I, II, and III.

◦How to pause and analyze their own learning using metacognitive thinking skills by reflecting on the two methods/metaphors for the 3 Rings and then discussing as a class which is most helpful to them in learning and understanding the key content knowledge

◦Legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the national government are distributed among three distinct and independent branches of government.*

  • The legislative branch

Structure:

  • Consists of the Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives (435 members, based upon populations of the states) and the Senate (100 members—two per state)*

Key Function/Power:

  • Makes the laws of the nation*
  • The executive branch

Structure:

  • Headed by the president of the United States, the chief executive officer of the nation*

Key Function/Power:

  • Executes the laws of the land*
  • The judicial branch

Structure:

  • Consists of the federal courts, including the SupremeCourt, the highest court in the land*

Key Functions/Powers:

  • The Supreme Court exercises the power of judicial review.*
  • The federal courts try cases involving federal law and questions involving interpretation of the Constitution of the United States.*

•Students will be able to (Do):

◦Analyze visual materials pertaining to the B.O.R.

◦List the branch that corresponds with Articles I-III of the Constitution

◦Define the key structure and function/power of each branch of the national government

◦Express their opinions in writing and discussion after using metacognitive thinking skills by reflecting on the two methods/metaphors for the 3 Rings and then discussing as a class which is most helpful to them in learning and understanding the key content knowledge

◦Effectively synthesize content knowledge into visual diagrams

◦Define separation of powers.

STANDARD CE.6a

The student will demonstrate knowledge of the American constitutional government at the national level by

a)describing the structure and powers of the national government.

Essential Understandings / Essential Questions / Essential Knowledge / Essential Skills
The Constitution of the United States defines the structure and powers of the national government.
The powers held by government are divided between the national government in Washington, D.C., and the governments of the 50 states. / What is the structure of the national government as set out in the United States Constitution?
What are the powers of the national government? / Legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the national government are distributed among three distinct and independent branches of government.
The legislative branch
•Consists of the Congress, a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives (435 members, based upon populations of the states) and the Senate (100 members—two per state)
•Makes the laws of the nation
•Approves the annual budget
•Confirms presidential appointments
•Raises revenue through taxes and other levies
•Regulates interstate and foreign trade
•Declares war
The executive branch
•Headed by the president of the United States, the chief executive officer of the nation
•Executes the laws of the land
•Prepares the annual budget for congressional action
•Appoints cabinet officers, ambassadors, and federal judges
•Administers the federal bureaucracy
The judicial branch
•Consists of the federal courts, including the SupremeCourt, the highest court in the land
•The Supreme Court exercises the power of judicial review.
•The federal courts try cases involving federal law and questions involving interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. / Examine and interpret primary and secondary documents (CE.1a)
Create and explain diagrams, tables, and charts. (CE.1b)

5. ASSESSMENT:

•Formative:The Do Now; The Discussion

•Unit Summative: Memorize & Recite the Preamble-Students will be expected per the CI’s direction to recite the Preamble from memory verbally (not related directly to this lesson) and an SOL-like Unit Quiz on Lesson 1 (mostly CE.6a and extension on the structure with the articles we taught) to be administered on Friday.

6. MATERIALS:

  • Smart Board for projecting do now, directions, etc.
  • Elmo for pair discovery answers
  • Teacher computer to display the PowerPoint
  • Laptops: Each student has their own provided by the school’s 1:1 initiative
  • Unit #6 Handouts

7. PROCEDURES:

  • 80-minute class (Lesson 1, Part 3-45 minutes; Lesson 1, Part 4-35 minutes)
  • *Student teacher teaches Lesson 1, Part 3 which is the first 45 minutes of the block and main classroom teacher teaches Lesson 1, Part 4 which is the last 35 minutes of the block
  • The day’s agenda and objectives will all be written on the board before the students arrive

Lesson 1, Part 3-The 3 Branches Overview (Articles I-III)

(First 45 min. of class)

Agenda

  1. Do Now/Review
  2. Objectives of the Day
  3. 3 Ring Government
  4. Branch Out!
  5. Check for Understanding

Lesson 1, Part 4-Review of the preamble, structure, and articles

(Last 35 min. of class and the first activity to be completed for homework)

Agenda:

  1. Constitution Scavenger Hunt
  2. Preamble Recitations
  3. Closure

*Both agendas will be displayed on the board for the students to follow along and help them transition more seamlessly between the two instructors/parts of the lesson

Lesson 1, Part 3-The 3 Branches Overview: Articles I-III (First 45 min. of class)

1. Do Now/Review (10 minutes)

  • This will be a review from the previous two parts of lesson 1 from Monday and Tuesday-the first 2 days of Unit #6.
  • The following Do-Now prompt will be displayed on the Smart Board next to the agenda: On a loose-leaf piece of paper answer the following:
  • 1. The Constitution sets up what?
  • 2. What are the main parts in the roadmap of the Constitution? What’s the general outline?
  • 3. What topics do Articles I, II, and III discuss?
  • After 6 minutes, at 9:36 we will stop and pass our sheets to the right to the end of our rows and the teacher will collect them. While we do this, we will discuss our answers.
  • The students will know, even though it is near the beginning of the semester, that they should take out their class binders, write the question down, and then write their answer to the question.

2. State the day’s objectives of the lesson part 3 (1 minute)

  • The teacher will point out that the agenda is on the board, that we have an exciting day ahead in civics, and read the main objectives off of the whiteboard in the front of the room.
  • Hook-Think back to our examples of campaign promises and representative government that you have in your own school. What governing body at school am I referring to, that we discussed last week? The structures outlined in the Constitution shape not only the federal government, but also many other governmental organizations such as their Study Council Association. There are usually people who carry out the powers that are grouped according to executive, legislative, and judicial tasks. The positions usually reflect these powers. Our goal for this lesson is to show you that the Constitution is still very relevant to you today; as we said citizens should be well informed of their rights. Beyond their rights though, citizens of the United States they should be aware of the Constitution’s layout for the government that runs their lives right now. To interact with something and be engaged or even effect change one must first understand the system itself. If you’re still wondering if this document is really that important and is still relevant today, think about this: The Constitution is the oldest written constitution in the WORLD that is still being used today. Yesterday we learned that what 3 articles set up the 3 branches of government? Today, we are zeroing in and taking a closer look at those 3 branches that our Constitution establishes. Tomorrow we will start looking at each one individually, but today we are looking at the big picture of the 3 together.

3. The 3 Ring Government-Video & Diagram (9 minutes)

•The teacher will have the Schoolhouse Rock Video “Three Ring Government,” cued up on YouTube prior to the beginning of class and on a minimized tab.

•Before the video, the teacher will set the class up for it by asking: What do you usually find at circuses? What are those 3 things a circus has? They sort of look like hula-hoops, right? Why do people go to circuses? They are usually crazy and have a lot going on right? The government can be the same way so it’s kind of a funny and somewhat accurate joke to say that the government is like a circus-constantly juggling, balancing, full of surprises, and never a dull moment!

•The teacher will inform the students that we will be watching an entertaining Schoolhouse Rock video about the 3 branches of government, and that they will be expected to fill out the handout: “3 Ring Government” (attached) during the video. They will be told that we will watch the video twice. Everyone should watch quietly, and that it will last for about 3 minutes. After they have seen it once we will pause and take some first observations, before watching it a second time. They will have about one minute to finish writing down their answers after the video before we go over the answers to the worksheet as a class.

  • After the video and the minute to finish their answers, the teacher will call on students to provide answers to the worksheet questions and she will scaffold if necessary for the correct answer. She will instruct the class to correct their answers if they put something other than the right answer down. What was the audience according to the video? Who was the ringmaster?
  • Why do you think we have 3 rings? Why don’t we have one large ring? Thinking back to the do now, why do we not give one person all the power? Why do we split it up? Does having 3 rings or 3 main parts of government in our structure help solve this problem of splitting up power? Why?
  • Leave these diagrams out on your desk while we work on our next activity. Please direct your attention up here as we are going to start a new fun activity.

4. Branch Out! (20 minutes)

  • In this activity, the students will be drawing a diagram of the 3 branches of government by using an illustration of a tree, much like the one in the classroom on the back wall. They will then fill in the key function/power and structure of each branch as outlined in the know’s above. The other know’s in the standard are not listed above and will be covered in-depth later in the unit when we go over the specific branches in each lesson. This activity and the previous one should help those with more visual learning style preferences and allow everyone to synthesize the content they just learned about in the 3-ring diagram and video, and also from parts 1 and 2 of lesson 1.
  • As the teacher is describing the activity, she will ask a student to pass out the worksheet that goes along with this activity. The students will be asked to clear their desks of everything but their 3-ring diagrams to make room for the activity.
  • Please your attention to the back wall of the classroom on the right-hand side to “The Three Branches of Government” giant tree. What do you notice about this tree? What sticks out to you?Call on students for a couple of responses. This is another metaphor or analogy to use as a tool for learning about the 3 branches of government in our system.
  • Our next fun activity is to create a drawing of the tree of federal government to help us understand how the 3 branches outlined in the first 3 Article of the Constitution fit into the system of government that we have laid out in the Constitution.
  • Students will be given 8x11” blank sheets of white paper and pencils. They will be told that they can have a few minutes at the end to use markers to color in their drawings, but that we do not want them to have to start over if they make a mistake and need to edit, which could happen with marker.
  • The teacher will then go step-by-step through the activity of drawing and diagram and modeling it for the students. At each step in the drawing she will pause and shift the burden to the students asking them to tell us what goes in each spot. The teacher will guide them and scaffold as needed. She will fill and label the drawing accordingly and ask students to copy what she does on the Smart Board on their own drawings.
  • Why do we have 3 branches instead of one large tree with just a trunk? What principle tells us power comes from the people? So what would go on the tree trunk? Where would the goals of the preamble go on this tree? They tell us what-the goals of government? So they are the products we want to achieve.

5. Check for Understanding-You Decide-Which is the Better Metaphor (5 minutes)