Weekly Syllabus

Week of Monday, September 8 through Friday, September 12


This week we will finish up our learning about school desegregation and will have some review activities that should help you to make better sense of what we've been studying.  At the end of the wee we will begin our study of student First Amendment rights, which will take us into our first simulation project.  As always, please feel free to conference if you have questions or if you just want to talk about the material.


Monday, September 8, 2014 (40 min)

Topic:  Discussion of Swann.

Homework: Watch video about Boston Busing Crisis on YouTube. Watch the first 30:25 of the video.  You will answer questions about it tomorrow in class. 
 

Tuesday, September 9, 2014 (50 min)

Topic: Finish discussion of Swann as needed; discussion of last night's video. Work in groups to generate answers of discussion questions (the groups are for your help, but every student will write answers in their own words).
Homework: Finish answering discussion questions.  Everyone should submit written answers to the questions by the start of class tomorrow.


Wednesday, September 10, 2014 (45 min)

Topic: We will have some open discussion on the topic of school desegregation, and bring the topic up to date.  Following that will be an introduction to our activities for the rest of the week. 

Homework: TBA

Thursday, September 11, 2014 (50 min)

Topic: We will be playing a computer game today (iCivics Argument Wars). If you have a computer of your own, feel free to bring it to class, otherwise we will use the library computers.

Remember that you MUST do the following cases:
 Brown v. Board of Education
Texas v. Johnson
Snyder v. Phelps

and after that you can pick any other case EXCEPT Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier.

You will play four games in total.  Please keep score of each game and report them on the portal.  I need to know the scores to give you full credit for the assignment.

Homework: Write a reaction to today's game on the class portal


Friday, September 12, 2014 (45 min)

Topic: Introduction to the first student freedom of speech case Tinker v. Des Moines School District. Following that will be information about how Supreme Court Justices make their decisions.
Homework: The reading for Tinker v. Des Moines School District is as follows:

EVERYONE should read the syllabus
LAST NAMES A-G should read the opinion by Justice Fortas, the concurrence by Justice White, and the concurrence by Justice Stewart
LAST NAMES L-U should read the dissent by Justice Harlan, and the dissent by Justice Black.