The Preamble: The Goals of the Constitution

The purpose of the 21-page mini-unit, "The Preamble: The Goals of the Constitution," is to help students in grades 5-8 understand the importance of The Preamble to the United States Constitution and its significance today.  This mini-unit is part of my unit on the Constitution: The Constitution is a Living Document.

This mini-unit is divided into 3 parts: Into, Through, and Beyond. 

• Part 1: Into provides students with the background they need to understand the Preamble, including a reading on the Preamble and vocabulary development. 

• Part 2: Through provides students with opportunities to paraphrase the Preamble and to critically apply the Preamble to our society today.  

• Part 3: Beyond offers students an opportunity to synthesize all their learning in a slideshow or Prezi project.  This is a summative assessment.

All of the work that they do in Parts 1 and 2 will be used for the project in Part 3: Beyond. The mini-unit generally takes between 4 and 5 days not counting the project.

The mini-unit comes with detailed lesson plans for each part, objectives, and learning targets that are aligned with the Common Core Standards and the California State History Standards, student handouts and worksheets, former student examples, and a rubric for the project.

You might be interested in my other Constitution-related lessons, many of which can be found in my bundle: Our Living Constitution.

Check out my store: A Great Good Place for Teachers

Here are the links

Into Lessons: Creating Schema

• Lesson 1: Overview of the Constitution of the United States of America

• Lesson 2: Origins of the Constitution and Essential Terms

• Lesson 3: The Seven Principles of the Constitution

Through Lessons: Learning the Content

• Lesson 4: The Preamble: The Goals of the Constitution (not included in Our Living Constitution)

• Lesson 5: The Three Branches of  Government: Articles 1, 2, and 3

• Lesson 6: How a Bill Becomes a Law

• Lesson 7: Federalism, Separation of Powers, and Checks and Balances

• Lesson 8: Articles 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the United States Constitution

• Lesson 9: The Bill of Rights Unit (and a Little About Amendments 11-27)

Extras (from the Unit: Every Four Years… The Presidential Election)

• Lesson 10: What Are Your Political Viewpoints? (not included in Our Living Constitution)

• Lesson 11: Major and Minor Political Parties (not included in Our Living Constitution)

• Lesson 12: A Brief History of Who Can Vote in the United States (not included in Our Living Constitution)

• Lesson 13: The Nuts and Bolts of the United States Presidential Election (not included in Our Living Constitution)

Beyond Lessons: Summative Assessments

• The Consitution is a Living Document (not included in Our Living Constitution)

• The Bill of Rights Explained Project: A Project to Assess Knowledge and Understanding (not included in Our Living Constitution)

1 Google Docs For the Materials.

Materials:

What is the Preamble? Reading (either the traditionally formatted version or the two-column version for talking to the text.

1: The Preamble to the United States Constitution: Understanding What It Means

2: The Preamble Paraphrase Directions

3: The 6 Goals of the Constitution

4: Has Our Nation Lived Up to these Goals?

5: Two Sample Class Preambles

6. Sample Explanations for Has Our Nation Lived Up to these Goals?

Butcher Block or construction paper, or small whiteboards: 1 per group. (I use whiteboards that are about 18 inches by 18 inches that I bought at Lowes Hardware. I had them cut the boards down to size for me.)

Markers: a different color for each group.

Preamble Slideshow Project Directions

Slideshow grading sheet and rubric

Slideshow sample pages

All previous materials

Chrome book or another device