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The Constitution, to quote Edmund Morgan, “invented the American people, a fictional body comprising all the people of the whole nation, endowed with sovereign powers superior to those of the people of any state or of all the states.”
After engaging in close reading of the Constitution as part of Assignment 7, ninth grade history students were each assigned a section of the Constitution to explore in greater depth. In addition to accurately translating the prose of their section of the Constitution into words more readily understandable to a contemporary audience, students created video presentations outlining the content and significance of a selection of the Constitution to be shared with the community.
Following are the questions guiding student inquiry:
- Context
- What are the historical forces giving rise to the text in your excerpt? What was the author’s motivation for including it? What is it responding to?
- Common Interpretation
- In your own words, what is the commonly understood meaning of this text?
- Matters of Debate
- How has this particular provision been interpreted in divergent ways?
- What are the claims the legal scholars make about the different interpretations? What evidence do they provide to support their claims?
- Can you identify a Supreme Court case/ruling that illustrates the debate over how to interpret this particular text? How and why is the case/ruling illustrative?
- Significance
- How does this provision connect to other sources, themes, or concepts we’ve looked at this year?
- Which of the debated interpretations do you find more persuasive? Why?
- Is there any way that you would advocate amending this section or clause? How? Why or why not would you suggest this adaptation?