Teaching the 1st Amendment to Gifted Students

Students Love Learning about the Freedom of Expression

Oct 21, 2009

What Idea are These Shirts Expressing, Publishing (Creative Commons)

When teachers bring the Bill of Rights into the classroom, gifted students are often enchanted by the abstractions of the first amendment.

Whenever gifted education teachers mention the start of a justice unit, the enrichment students light up. The units are most applicable to secondary students, who are able to bounce between abstract and concrete reasoning quickly and who will be learning about criminal and civil justice in the regular classroom. The first amendment is a great way to kick off any unit on the Bill of Rights, because gifted students enjoy:

debating issues (and the first amendment has plenty to debate),
applying abstract reasoning to concrete situations, and
seeing real-life applications of how the Bill of Rights affects them directly.

Understanding the 1st Amendment

The 1st Amendment is long and meandering. Teachers should allow students to working as a class or in small groups to unpack the complex meanings behind the purposefully open, vague language. Teachers should give students a copy of the text of the amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

As students take the amendment apart, this is what teachers should guide them to understand the following questions, which are written in an order to complement the understanding of the amendment:

What does it mean to make a law respecting an establishment?
What is free exercise?
What does it mean to abridge?
How is speech different from press? Note: teachers should specifically guide students to understand the differences between expressing ideas (speech) and mass communication (press).
What is a peaceful assembly?
Why would it be important for people to ask the government to correct mistakes (redress of grievances)?

A Classroom Activity to Explore the 1st Amendment

Once students are able to demonstrate an understanding of the first amendment, the teacher should have a "favorite t-shirt day" when students can wear their favorite, school-appropriate t-shirt to class. Then, each student takes turns standing in front of the class, and must stay silent as the class deciphers the meaning of the t-shirt. The teacher should ask, "What idea is this t-shirt expressing?" A search of "cool t-shirts" online will bring up pictures of shirts for schools that do not allow t-shirts. Examples of t-shirts, which are pictured with this article, include:

"She Blinded Me with Library Science"
Word Play of "Phoney (with pictures of phones)"
"Keep Calm and Carry On" (and the opposing view, "Now Panic and Freak Out")
"Meat is Murder. Tasty Tasty Murder"
"Capitalism" (Written in Coca Cola font and coloring)

After everyone in class has interpreted the shirt, the student wearing the shirt can share what idea he or she was planning to express while wearing it. (Be warned: many students will like the image or coloring of the shirt, and will not have chosen it for a specific message).

1st Amendment Cases for Students

After learning about the amendment and becoming more aware of the freedom of expression, some cases that specifically apply to students include:

Tinker vs. Des Moines Independent School District, a 1969 case where two siblings wore black armbands to school to protest war.
Bethel School District vs. Fraser, a 1986 case where a boy gave speech to his school with inappropriate overtones.
Island Trees School District vs. Pico, a 1982 case about removing books from library shelves.

It is important to use cases that have gone to high courts, so students can be assured that the judgments are the final word...until another case comes that changes the rules.

Although there are not as many rules in student handbooks governing the first amendment as there are governing the fourth, fifth and sixth amendments, teachers may want to adapt the fourth amendment handbook search for students to use with the first amendment, This will underscore the significance of the first amendment in daily student life.

The copyright of the article Teaching the 1st Amendment to Gifted Students in Teaching Gifted Students is owned by Alex Sharp. Permission to republish Teaching the 1st Amendment to Gifted Students in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.