Freedom of Press Lesson Plan

Instructional Activity Plan - Freedom of Speech

Step 1: What do you plan to teach? What materials will your students and you need?

 

Instructional Activity’s Learning Objective:

 

You will be able to identify a situation and determine if it is protected under your First Amendment rights. Today we are going to look back on Freedom of Speech since it ties into Freedom of The Press and Freedom to petition and assemble.

 

Materials Needed:

 

Power point, activity slips, poster boards, red bull

 

Step 2: How will you introduce what you plan to teach?  How will you gain attention and interest?  How will you make the objective relevant and meaningful?  How will you build the necessary background knowledge for the activity’s learning objective?  How will you “Teach with the Brain AND Student in Mind?”

 

 

  1. Hook - I will recap what we have learned in our previous classes - the 1st Amendment protects the Freedom of Religion, speech, the press and the right to assemble and petition. Then I will show them a fun little rap video that ties all together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHBRecvPAg&t=41s

 

I hope this is teaching with the Brain and Student in mind since it is breaking from just stating the objectives and going into the lecture by having them watch a fun video. I wanted my hook to be a bit novel and silly. I want to warm them up before going into the new material.

 

Step 3:  How will you teach the activity’s objective?  How will you model?  What other techniques will you use to engage the learners? How will you provide guided practice of your objective?  How will you “Teach with the Brain AND Student in Mind?”

 

 

 

  1. INPUT - I will go over Freedom of Press in detail and talk about how shield laws protect journalists. To check for understanding, I will ask them why it’s important for journalists to protect their sources and have them discuss this with their shoulder partners.  I also want to tie in how “the press” media has changed due to technology and the issues that have come up because of this. I will ask them questions to get them to think more deeply about the subject. To get them to participate and stay engaged I will ask them to raise their hand if they have picked up a newspaper and read it?

 

  1. INPUT 2 -For the second part of the lecture, I will go back to how the press ties to freedom of speech.  I will mention their homework with the case Tinker vs Des Moines and how they paved the way for freedom of speech in the classroom. I will go over what is not acceptable and give them some examples if something is allowed or not. This will help to check for understanding. I will then go over commercial speech and give the red bull example. After going over the example, I will show a short 30 second YouTube video that shows how they changed the commercial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K31dg86OmuM

 

  1. INPUT 3 - Finally, the last part of the lecture is Freedom of Petition and Assembly. I will have a poster board as a visual with different examples of petition and tell them about change.org where they can go online and sign various petitions.  Then, I will talk about freedom of assembly and how it must be peaceful assembly – I will ask them to talk to their shoulder partners why the government wants people to peacefully assemble and what does that look like?

 

My lesson contains a big chunk of lecture and by breaking it into parts I will be chunking the information for the students. I am also incorporating times for the students to discuss what we are learning with their shoulder partners. This should help them get a deeper understanding of the topic and a break from just me lecturing.  This should be both teaching with the brain and student in mind. I am also inserting other visuals and using auditory stimulus that will keep the students engaged.  I want to give them these real world and relevant examples so, they can not only understand their 1st amendment rights but, how it applies in various situations.

 

  1. Model: I will explain what Time, Manner, Place have to do with freedom of petition and assembly.  Then I will give them an example of this and ask them what it violates.

 

  1. Guided:  I will ask the students to look at the EQ and we will go over it together as a class. We will determine if a Nazi party will be allowed to have a speech in front of a Jewish community center. Then I will read them of an example of this that occurred and how the government regulated it.

 

  1. Independent/Group Work – We will end the lecture with an activity that ties everything they learned about the first amendment together. I am going to pass out 8 laws either a city or town wants to pass, and your job is to determine if it is constitutional or not and why.

 

I will also pass out 4 examples of people asking for a permit for an event – you are going to read the event purpose, date, time place and manner and using what you learned about time manner and place you will decided if the permit will be granted or not

 

I am going to give you 3 -5 mins to discuss this with the people around you then as a class I will read each example and ask what you decided and give you the correct answer

 

This is both teaching with the student and brain in mind since it not only gives them real life relevance to create meaning it gives 12 students the chance to be a leader in their with their peers and discuss the example they got to come to a conclusion. This will also have the students collaborate with each other and tie everything they have learned together.

 

Step 4:  How will you close or end the activity?  How will you review the activity’s objective?  How will you encourage reflection and feedback?  How will you “Teach with the Brain AND Student in Mind?”

 

 

  1. CLOSE – I will close the activity by going over the examples and going over the objective from the beginning. I will remind the students that they have rights until they infringe upon the rights of others. We will discuss how the government can regulate certain things like Time, Place, Manner certain kinds of speech etc.  Then the students will put it all together by taking a pop quiz on the first amendment.

 

This will be both teaching with the brain and student in mind since it is tying everything they learned together.  Throughout the lesson I was giving examples that are like what will be on their quiz so, this will be a way for me to assess what they understand and retained. It also brings the topic full circle.