General Information

Students will interact with several of the founding documents of the United States and their authors to identify essential ideas that led to a constitutional government.

Standards Tapestry

This unit on the founding documents assesses several different state standards for 8th grade social studies as well as 8th grade Language Arts. These standards are SS 8.1.4, 8.1.6, 8.1.30, and 8.2.1; and from Language Arts 8.2.4, 8.3.6, 8.3.7, 8.4.2, 8.4.4, 8.4.6, 8.5.3, 8.6.5, 8.6.6, 8.6.7, 8.7.2, and 8.7.5.  The central idea for students to learn is that the founding documents of the United States and their authors represent essential ideas that lay the framework for our constitutional government. Students will read some of the documents in class, some on-line, and some on his or her own. The unit also will include a quiz over the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, a web-based assignment about the national archives, a Power Point presentation, and a short research paper that correlates to both Social Studies and English standards

Assessment Rationale

There are a variety of assessments built into this unit. Students will experience a quiz over the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. They will keep a dialectical journal to interact  with the documents, compare the First and Second Continental Congresses using a Venn Diagram, do a Resource Guide paper that covers both social studies and language arts standards, and will conduct a PowerPoint presentation.

Assessment Links

• Declaration of Independence Quiz

• Foundations Vocabulary

• Dialectical Journal

• Founding Documents Power Point Presentation

• PowerPoint Rubric

Humanities-rich Resources

Type (book link, etc.)	Name	URL (if any)	Annotation (can include description and notes on how to use.
Link	Our Documents	http://ourdocuments.gov/index.php?flash=true&	List of 100 documents from the National Archives
Link	Charters of Freedom	http://www.archives.gov/	Images of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Link	Washington's Farewell Address	http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm	Text of Washington's Farewell Address
Link	Virginia's Declaration of Rights	http://gunstonhall.org/documents/vdr.html	Text of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights
Link	Constitution of Massachusetts, 1780	http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/ma-1780.htm	Copy of Mass. Constitution (33 pages long)
Link	Lee Resolution	http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=1	Lee's Resolution proposing independence
Video	George Washington, The Man Who Wouldn't be King	http://www.ihc4u.org/htgH8.htm	Available from Humanities to Go
Link	Articles of Confederation	http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=3	Link to the Articles of Confederation from Our Documents
Link	Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom	http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/religion/va-religiousfreedom.html	1786 document by Jefferson
Link	Declaration of Independence	http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=2	Link to the Declaration of Independence
Link	Declaration of Independence Summary	http://www.founding.com/declare/index.cfm	Excellent summary of the Declaration of Independence
Link	Comparison of First and Second Continental Congress	http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/pdf/venn.pdf	Venn Diagram to compare
Link	Federalist 10 and Federalist 51	http://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=10&page=transcript	Link to the Federalist Papers
Link	Jefferson' First Inaugural Address	http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres16.html	Link to the Address
Link	Written Document Analysis worksheet	http://archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/analysis_worksheets/document.html	Document analysis worksheet from the national archives
Link	Fairfax Resolves of Washington	http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/gwfairfax.html	Primary Source document challenging the British and calling for military action
Link	Resource Guide	http://www.indianastandardsresources.org/files/soc/ss_8_1_30.pdf	Resource guide to address standard SS 8.1.30

This unit corresponds with Chapter 8 of “Call to Freedom” published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

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On Day One of the unit, I will introduce students to the concept of using primary sources as history. (Presuming I haven't done this yet in the school year.) Ideas for doing this are found at the following site from the National Archives. http://archives.gov/digital_classroom/history_in_the_raw.html

Students will be told to bring any primary sources about their lives to class that they can share. Examples would be birth certificates, social security cards, passports, family portraits, report cards, and so forth. We will use a simple worksheet (file below) to analyze the primary sources. Next, we will begin looking at copies of two primary sources that we will examine, the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.

The teacher discusses the main ideas of both the Declaration of Independence as well as the Articles of Confederation. Students will find more information about each of these documents during the web quest on day two.

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On Day Two of the unit, the students will be in a computer lab working on a web quest from the national archives. The quest leads them quickly through the “Making of the Charters” link from the Exhibit Hall of the National Archives site. In addition to learning about the king's position and the position of the colonists, the web quest helps to familiarize the students with the resources available at the National Archives web site. The web assignment is attached as a MS Word document. Students will also view the following links:

• Assignment Document

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On Day Three students will review the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation prior to the quiz over the two. (SS 8.1.4) Students will also read from the Holt textbook, sections 8.1 and 8.2 and complete the guided reading strategies worksheet. We will do a written document analysis worksheet from the U.S. National Archives. http://archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/analysis_worksheets/document.html

Possible documents to examine are the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the Land Ordinance of 1785, or the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.

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On Day Four students will be assigned the power point project.

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Day Six: research day, time to work on dialectical journals

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Day Seven: Students begin power point presentations. All other students take notes during presentations and will be responsible for that information on the unit test.

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Day Eight: Same as Day Seven

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Day Nine: Students will compare original texts of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights, Federalist Number 10, and Lee Resolution with summaries of each document. Copies of the summaries are attached.

Groups will break into jigsaw groups of five or six depending upon the class size. Each group will discuss and become experts on one of the document summaries. Students will write notes so that they can share what they know about their document with another group tomorrow.

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Day Ten: Students now go to a different group to share what they know. The students will be arranged in such a way that all the groups will have one expert on each of the document summaries. They will compose individual compositions in which they discuss the main purposes of each of the documents. Specifically, students will address how the document laid the framework for a constitutional government.

Each student then receives his or her own historical research guide. The historical question is the same for each, “How did these documents lead to a federal constitution?

The two-page paper will address the English standards listed as well as SS 8.1.30 and will be due in subsequent days

Instructional Day	Description
Day 1	Introduction to Primary Sources including the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation
Day 2	Web Assignment on National Archives and Summary of the Declaration of Independence
Day 3	Ch. 8, Section 1 Guided Reading, Quiz over Declaration and Articles of Confederation
Day 4	Introduce Power Point, begin library research, read 8.2 and 8.3 including a guided reading activity for 8.3
Day 5	Introduce Dialectical Journal and do research for power point presentation, also vocabulary assignment on constitutional government as well as Venn Diagram
Day 6	Read 8.4, research, continue dialectical journals
Day 7	Power Point presentations
Day 8	Power Point presentations
Day 9	Compare original texts to summaries with jigsaw
Day 10	Jigsaw activity followed by Resource Guide

• Summary Declaration

• Summary Lee Resolution

• Summary Articles Conf

• Summary Bill of Rights

• Summary Federalist Number10

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Classroom Implementation Notes

• Notes Document

Teacher Inquiry Kiosk

• Constitution Bibliography