This unit is designed to provide students in grades seven through twelve with opportunities to engage in critical, analytical, and creative thinking skills. It will also help students become familiar with the U.S. Constitution, with emphasis on the Bill of Rights. While examining the fallacies inherent in what America calls "democracy," students will utilize intellectual curiosity, objectivity, open mindedness, flexibility, intellectual honesty, decisiveness, and persistence as tools for extrapolating purpose and meaning from documents. They will use real world examples as catalysts for class discussions, cross reference factual information with theoretical postulates, understand the importance of utilizing intellectual skepticism, as a means of analyzing and quantifying information, and learn how to develop better persuasive writing techniques.
This unit can be infused into a study of history, or critical thinking.
(Developed for TAG-Future Problem Solving, grade 7; recommended for History and Critical Thinking, grades 7-12)
