Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Teaching about the Articles of Confederation, Federalists and Antifederalists, and the Constitution is often the duty of a U.S. History teacher. Having students walk away understanding these topics is the goal, but not always easy to ascertain. The products in this bundle have helped me bridge the gap for students as well as help me understand how well they are understanding the material.
Please read each description carefully to make sure what you are buying will be a good match for the students you teach.
The Articles of Confederation with Federalist vs. Antifederalist Survey
Trying to find a way to explain the Articles of Confederation to your students without them drifting off into daydream land? This lesson helps to make it real by connecting to their lives. Provided is a summarized story about the Articles of Confederation that I use with my 8th grade U.S. History students, which explains why the Articles of Confederation came about as well as the powers delegated to the state and national governments.
As a way for students to grasp the concepts, I have included an activity where students are given 15 issues that they have to decide if each one should be their parent(s) responsibility, their responsibility, or both of their responsibilities. Kind of like the national government was the "parent government" and they are like the state government. At the end students look at how many issues they said should just be left up to them, how many should be their parent's responsibility, and how many should be shared responsibilities. A wonderful class discussion takes place afterward where students justify their reasons for their selections. I then have them compare those issues to issues that were faced when the Continental Congress was trying to set up a government. For example, one of the issues is who should be able to decide who your friends are. Students always say that should be up to them, but when we compare it to the Articles of Confederation, only the national government was allowed to make peace or sign treaties, thus deciding who we would associate with. They were the parent government. Why wasn't this left up to the states? Isn't it the same? Then BAM! The discussion erupts again.
Also included is a summary of the Federalist vs. Antifederalist, which were the groups that Americans associated themselves with when the Constitution was being constructed. A survey with 7 topics about government is included where students either answer with a "YES" or a "NO." The reason there are 7 is because they will not have a tie and it will place them as either being more of a Federalist or more of an Antifederalist.
Both of these combined can be a one day class activity/discussion to get students thinking about how they think power should be distributed in regard to state vs. national government.
These two activities have worked well for me in the past so I hope they help your students better understand where they stand in regard to power distribution in the government.
Articles of Confederation to Constitution: Cloze Story Style Quiz
This is a story quiz I created that uses the "Cloze" reading strategy where students fill in the 43 blanks within the story using a word bank provided. There are more words and dates in the word bank than students will use. The quiz is rather lengthy and takes about 30 minutes for a student to complete (some more some less of course). This would be a great quiz to give if you knew you were going to have a substitute teacher that day.
I teach 8th grade U.S. History using the Creating America: Beginnings through World War I text book and this goes along with Chapters 7 and 8. This quiz lets me see how well students are connecting to the story so far.
This quiz needs to be printed on 11" x 17"
paper and is one page. The answer key and the word bank are also on 11"x17" paper with the word bank having four word banks per page that get cut out to save on paper. I grade this as a class allowing students to grade their own making sure there is nothing on their desks except the red marker I provide for them. That way they can see for themselves which ones they got right or wrong and hear the story read to see how it is put together.
The Word Bank for the Cloze Story Quiz:
(there are more words in the word bank than will be used on the quiz)
"Give me liberty or give me death!”
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
“United we stand, divided we fall.”
Articles of Confederation
Declaration of Independence
The Great Compromise
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