A new lesson, appropriate for 8th grade civics and adaptable for other grades, asks: What impact did the Magna Carta have on the U.S. Constitution and the shaping of the 14th Amendment? With a particular emphasis placed on the due process of law, students analyze and organize primary source documents ranging from a British Court of Common Pleas from 1610 to Chief Justice Warren’s notes on Miranda v. Arizona in 1966.
Reforming American Society with Dix and Mann
The instrumental role Dorothea Dix played in reforming prisons and mental institutions, and the actions of Horace Mann in his campaign for free public education are at the center of this lesson. How did improvements in conditions for people in the public charge, whether prisoners or people institutionalized because of disability, come about? How did the the idea of who gets to be educated change? By focusing attention on the strategies used by these social reformers, the lesson engages students in critical thinking about the methods of reformers as well as their goals.