Supreme+Court

Supreme Court Page =Day 1- 7/12/10 Intro to Supreme Court= Students will be able to: -Connect last week's unit on immigration to this week's unit on the Supreme Court -Identify prior knowledge about the Supreme Court -Create a list of questions students still have about the Supreme Court

Research question for the Supreme Court:
What is the history of our current chief justice?

<-- Day 1 activities

=Day 2- 7/13/10= = = Students will be able to - research a topic of personal interest on the Supreme Court - evaluate a variety of internet resources for research - organize research findings on to a Mind Map using the program Inspiration - present research findings within the classroom and virtually using video chat - summarize researched and shared information on the Supreme Court by creating a Glog



I feel video chatting can be helpful in gathering information from others though it can be distracting. I learned that Chief Justice John G. Roberts was appointed by George W. Bush.

=Day 3- 7/14/10= students will be able to: I would cancel the jobs because they aren't official yet. I would want the jobs cancelled because the people given the jobs are friends of the previous mayor and they may oppose my political views. A negative to denying their jobs would be uneven political views in city hall. A positive to taking theor jobs away is being able to appoint people, I fell, better suit the jobs. It would make thing more difficult for me if I had people who were supposed to be on my side, work against me.
 * research current trends/decisions of the US Supreme Court
 * analyze and annotate court documents (majority/minority opinions) and expert analysis reports
 * discuss the details and ramifications of recent court cases and justice nominations
 * create a podcast that incorporates students' knowledge and various viewpoints about the situation
 * A.** Should you 1) honor the jobs promised by the old mayor, or 2) cancel the jobs since they aren’t “officially” in the system yet?
 * B.** What are the possible negatives to denying these people their jobs? What are the possible positives to allowing them to take these jobs?
 * C.** Would it make a difference if the perspective employees had worked against you in the mayoral elections?



[|Supreme Court Glogster]

My glogster is very informative and specificly explains the role of the Supreme Court in the government. I stated the power of Chief Justice John G. Roberts and I explained how the case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) affected the Supreme Court. Also, after discussing with a partner, I learned new information to add to my glogster.

=Day 4- 7/15/10=

After the lesson, students will be able to:
 * research current trends/decisions of the US Supreme Court
 * analyze and annotate court documents (majority/minority opinions) and expert analysis reports
 * discuss the details and ramifications of recent court cases and justice nominations
 * create a podcast that incorporates students' knowledge and various viewpoints about the situation

Activity 2
At conclusion of discussion, you will break into groups to choose your group topic. Then as a group find two articles that identify opposing views on the topic; the majority and minority opinion would make excellent choices (you may consider the Supreme Court homepage or the Supreme Court of the the US blog for your research). Half the group should read and mark up article 1 and half read and mark up article 2. After reading, use the Save the Last Word technique to better comprehend the scope of the topic. Save the Last Word Two-col directions.doc

In topic groups, identify the necessary roles for your talk radio podcast discussion. Outline the key points of the discussion and identify which student wil play which roles. Students work on their own or in pairs to work out the details of their commentary using the internet for any extra research.



The document above is from a recent New York Times article discissing the decision on the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case. The case was about a discriminatory group that was fromed at Hastings Law School by the CLS that excluded those who were gay and didn't follow Christianity. The argument was about whether the group should or should not be funded by the school.