HOOK EM

For my hook lesson I am going to engage my students in thinking about the values and principles of American democracy. To do this, I am going to read a short narrative of the state of America post Revolutionary War, but before the Constitution. I am going to highlight that America was free from Britain, and how has to discovery and establish itself as a country. America needs to figure out who it is as a country in terms of what it cares about; what is important to it. I will then have students break into groups of 3-4 and write their own version of a Preamble to the Constitution. They will think through what is important to America and Americans. I will then conclude the lesson by explaining that the students are going to spend time over the next few weeks discovering what it is to be an American and what it was like for other major historical figures.

I haven't had much time to think through this hook lesson. I still have some major things to think through and think of ideas to really engage the students in a meaningful way. This is just the nutshell of my lesson. I think it is appropriate because it gets the students thinking about what it means to be an American. It gets them thinking about the idea of a country having values and principles. Also, according to our annual plan, the students will have already studied the history of America to the point of the  Revolutionary War and they will have learned about the structure of government in America. This will be a good way for them to get thinking about values and principles of American democracy.