McNulty – AP Government and Politics

2017 Summer Assignment

Welcome to AP Gov. There will be TONS to examine over the course of the year. There are a number of goals for this summer assignment. First and foremost it is to “make time” for the amount of information to be covered in this class – there is little time to cover everything in a semester. Secondly, it will allow you to become politically aware and media savvy when you return.

I will be available on Twitter (@mcnulty_gphs) and email (). I’ll do my best to get back to you ASAP.

All resources are available via my Google Classroom | AP Government – 2017 Summer Assignment (code: je48u4 – go to classroom.google.com and enter the code). Or you can use the district webpage at the Summer Assignment tab).

There are three pieces to this summer assignment: News Journal, Bill of Rights Analysis, and Major Supreme Court Cases (more details on each piece are included on the following pages).

SR1 | News Journal

Follow the news. Use Google Docs ( to outline six news stories: two stories regarding politics, two stories regarding social events, one story about foreign policy, and one story about economics.

This should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by Wednesday of the first week of school.

SR2 | US Constitution

You will create review cards in Quizlet ( You will create 34 cards: 7 for each article of the Constitution and 27 for each Amendment.

The link to this should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by the end of the first week of class.

SR3 | Important Supreme Court Cases

You will create review cards in Quizlet ( You will create 25cards: one for each case listed on the final page of this document

The link to this should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by the end of the second week of class.

News Journal

A large portion of class discussion will stem from what you understand about politics, as well as how you perceive the media. Completing this news journal will allow you to walk into the room in September more aware of your “political self” and political coverage in the media. These are the two filters through which we see politics. The quality of class discussions and how you begin to incorporate and synthesize new information and knowledge benefits from being aware of current events. Hopefully this will also help you to get in the habit of following the news, if you don’t do so already, which will be an absolute requirement for the course. If you follow me on Twitter I will post various stories that you might find interesting or useful for this assignment.

For this assignment, you will need to create a table in Google Docs in the format below (or make a copy of this Google Doc:

News Story Title: / News Source: / Your Opinion:
News Story Summary: / Date of News Item:
Link to News Item:

You will need to complete this table for:

Theme / # of stories to cover / Description of theme
Political / 2 / Everything is political- in this instance “political” means stories having to do particularly with elections, parties, laws, leaders, etc. Think Democrats v. Republicans
Economic / 1 / Stories which have to do with the economy directly, such as Wall Street, jobs, business and the state of the economy, recession/recovery, oil prices, taxes, or with social class issues (middle v. upper class).
Social / 2 / Stories which have to do with civil rights issues (race, gender, immigration, etc), ‘cultural’ and ‘moral’ issues such as abortion, religion, and civil liberties issues (freedom), such as free speech issues, guns, crime, states’ rights, etc.
Foreign Policy / 1 / Stories having to do with the War on Terror or issues with Iran, Cuba, Israel, Venezuela, England, EU, North Korea.

This should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by Wednesday of the first week of school.

US Constitution – Articles and Amendments

Understanding the Constitution is essential for this course. We will spend a full unit of study covering principles and diving in further, but this assignment will set the foundation and framework for those lessons.

You will create review cards in Quizlet ( You will create 34 cards: 7 for each article of the Constitution and 27 for each Amendment.

In Quizlet:

  • for each term: enter the article number or amendment number
  • for each definition: include a description in your own words of what the article or amendment does and include the date of ratification for the amendments

Example:

The link to this should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by the end of the first week of class.

Important Supreme Court Cases

You will create review cards in Quizlet ( You will create 25 cards: one for each case listed.

In Quizlet:

  • for each term: enter the case name
  • for each definition: include date, the issue, what the court decided, and what the vote was

You need to include the following cases:

  1. McCulloch v. Maryland
  2. Marbury v. Madison
  3. Plessy v. Ferguson
  4. Brown v. Board of Education
  5. Korematsu v. United States
  6. Mapp v. Ohio
  7. Engel v. Vitale
  8. Lemon v. Kurtzman
  9. Gideon v. Wainwright
  10. Miranda v. Wainwright
  11. Tinker v. Des Moines
  12. Lemon v. Kurtzman
  13. Roe v. Wade
  14. US v. Nixon
  15. Buckley v. Valeo
  16. Regents of California v. Bakke
  17. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
  18. Texas v. Johnson
  19. Gibbons v. Ogden
  20. Reynolds v. United States
  21. Oregon v. Smith
  22. Schenck v. United States
  23. NY Times v. Sullivan
  24. Barron v. Baltimore
  25. Gitlow v. New York

The link to this should be submitted to McNulty via Google Classroom by the end of the second week of class.