Grade 5 Lesson at a Glance: Chapter 12, Lesson 2

Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
America Will Be

Lesson at a Glance
Chapter 12, Lesson 2: The Constitution (pp. 297-303)

The Big Idea
Framework Concept: Change, Rights, and Interconnectedness The writers of the Constitution created three branches of government to balance one another and wrote the Bill of Rights to protect the rights of citizens.

Discuss why students think it is important for different parts of a country to agree how the government is organized and the rights of its citizens. Remind students of how the colonists felt under the rule of the British and predict what they think the writers of the new constitution would include in the basic rights of citizens in the United States.

Ask students to list as many of the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights as they can. Write their responses on the board. After students have read the chapter, have them read the Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to the Constitution, found in the backs of their textbooks. Have students point out any rights not mentioned earlier. Add these to the list on the board.

Lesson Outline
Use the Lesson Outline to preview the content of the lesson. You may wish to print it for your students as a guide during reading.

Check for Understanding

Ask students to consider why compromise was so important to the success of the Constitutional Convention. Using the text for guidance, have them role-play a debate that may have taken place at the convention.
Have students create a poster that illustrates one of the rights that citizens in the United States have as the result of the Bill of Rights.

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