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Introduction Lesson

What To Expect

These modules were designed for a student-led, e-learning exploration.

In each lesson, students will:

  • Review a landmark Supreme Court case
  • Study primary sources from that time period
  • Read and analyze poetry

The students will use the same analysis form (with the same questions) for each lesson. It will be available for digital download on the student website.

Students will also be required to answer an extended response question chosen from the list.

How Will You Teach?

  • Lead the whole group through each module & analysis
  • Lead the whole group through the introduction lesson & conclusion lesson, and allow them to individually work through the modules
  • Assign modules to small groups or partners
  • Assign modules individually
  • Complete one module as a whole group, and assign another individually

All the student materials & modules are available at civics360.org/3PLessons

All educator materials are available at floridacitizen.org/3PLessons

A Poetry Review is available at ___ or in a Poetry Review Handout

Activity Sequence

Hook

  1. Begin your class with a discussion around the quote from Emma Snyder, “Capitol Hill is not just a place of politics but of language.” How do your students interpret it? What could the speaker mean? 
  2. Have students watch the two clips from the Library of Congress Discussion on Poetry, Publishing, and Race.
    1. Clip 1: https://safesha.re/4sju 
    2. Clip 2: https://safesha.re/4sjv 

(Full clips can be found on the Library of Congress YouTube link. Clip 1 is 1:00-2:00. And Clip 2 is 17:55-20:26)

  1. Generate a discussion with your class on the function and purpose of utilizing poetry to recall history. What are the benefits? (personal accounts, multiple perspectives, artform preserved) What are the dangers? (bias account, unreliable narrator, historically accurate vs. historical fiction)

Activity

  1. Explain to students that over the next several lessons, they’re going to be analyzing poetry and primary sources as they are associated with landmark Supreme Court rulings. If necessary, use the steps below to review what makes a landmark Supreme Court case.
    1. What makes a landmark case? (significance, complexity, & impact)
    2. Impacts
      1. Socially: widespread public support/concern, large shifts in how things are done, expansion/restriction of rights 
      2. Stare Dasis (legal precedent): future cases, legislation, individual liberties, governmental power all rely on rulings
  2. Based on what they know, have students begin to compile a list of Supreme Court Cases that they consider landmark or important to review.
  3. Explain to students that poetry is timeless. And despite when it’s published, it will reflect the attitudes, themes, and actions of a variety of historical events. 
  4. Hand out a copy of the Declaration Analysis. 
  5. Display Tracy K. Smith’s 2018 poem Declaration, and have students answer the questions on their graphic organizer. 
  6. As a whole group, connect this poem back to the sentiments shared in the two videos above. (Re-watching them if needed.) How does this poem support the discussion points from the earlier videos?

Conclusion

  1. Instruct students that through the next several e-Learning modules, they’ll be reviewing landmark Supreme Court cases and analyzing poetry and primary sources that connect with it. 
  2. Give students some time to explore the platform and become accustomed to it. Explain to them that the culminating activity for each of these lessons will be to build a presentation of their own over another landmark Supreme Court case and find accompanying poetry and primary sources for it. 

Teacher Note: A rubric for this project can be found in the Conclusion Lesson.

Additional Resources

Sample Answers

Additional Resources

Download the Introduction Lesson

Link to Google Docs

Zip Folder Download

Poetry Review

Need a Poetry Review?

Through this interactive lesson and guided practice, learners will explore how poets use theme to convey central ideas, figurative language to create vivid imagery and emotion, and rhetorical devices to persuade, emphasize, and enhance their message.

Back to Policy, Poetry, & Primary Sources Homepage

Lesson Designed with support from: