What is the role of the Supreme Court in American History? How do past Supreme Court rulings affect our lives today? Whether or not you could answer these questions in part or in whole, it is our job as educators to inform students of the judicial process and how it has evolved over time since the signing of the Constitution in 1787.
From the first days of the United States, the Supreme Court has been fundamental in interpreting our Constitution and shaping our government as we know it today. The unit that I have devised is to look at the role of the Supreme Court as it relates to child labor. My main focus is to examine the onset and progression of child labor leading up to the Supreme Court case of Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251. I strongly feel students will gain an insight into the responsibilities and precedence the Supreme Court sets for the entire United States.
This unit will be aimed for the seventh grade special education population that I teach in an inclusive environment. The students that I work with are on a spectrum ranging from Learning Disabled to Autistic. Due to a wide range of disabilities and various learning styles, I feel a multi-sensory approach would be most beneficial to meet the goals and objectives as reflected in each student’s Individualized Education Plan.
Some of the material in this unit will be read orally within a large group setting and other material will be researched by students in small pods. Along with the regular education teachers, I will develop many engaging and thought provoking activities that capture and sustain the interest of my special education students as well as the rest of the class.
The lessons that I will cultivate will integrate assorted methodologies of learning such as auditory, visual and kinesthic. The lessons will be clear and concise for a greater understanding of the historical facts.
Within my proposed unit, I will be able to teach my students’ content, intellectual skills such as making inferences, the ability to develop and form conclusions based on evidence within a text and provide them with the civic skills for making informative decisions in order to be an active participant in our democratic society.
As a special education teacher, I am challenged with many barriers educationally, socially and emotionally. Since I am working in an inclusive setting, I see a large number of special education and regular education students having difficulty reading and comprehending material due to a lack of phonemic awareness, phonics and minimal to no vocabulary recall. Therefore, students often give up. As teachers we know that reading is crucial to daily living and without it one would be lost. In trying to teach this unit students must see the information presented to them as a valuable tool.
This above-referenced unit will integrate the two disciplines of Social Studies and Language Arts. The allotted time given for this unit will be approximately two weeks. The intent of this unit is designed to meet the New Haven Board of Education Curriculum Standards and No Child Left Behind Law enacted in 2004.
Based on the seventh grade Social Studies curriculum students are required to research historical data and explain the causes and effects of an event. The Language Arts curriculum focuses on reading a variety of texts and being able to express individual ideas by demonstrating a critical stance. Using an interdisciplinary approach will assist in the overall learning of a subject matter as well as making a transference of curriculum standards.
