History

Supreme Court Research Project

Objectives:  This project will enable the student to learn and utilize essential research skills and proper citations by researching and understanding the social and political impacts of a major US Supreme Court decision.  The student will improve public speaking skills by presenting their final presentation to the class.  This will be graded using criteria B (investigating) and C (communicating).  

1. Each student will choose a landmark Supreme Court Case.

2. Each student should research the case and use Noodletools as the method to record and organize research.  Wikipedia and other unreliable sources are not acceptable.

3. Each student will complete a Google slideshow presentation in the following format:

c. Slide 1:  Title slide should include the case, the year, and your names.

c. Slide 2-3 :  Summary of events should be in bulleted form.  This summary should efficiently detail what happened that led to the case, background of the issue

c. Slide 4 :  Summarize the Constitutional issues that this case raised.  These issues can be in question form that will help lead discussion of your case.  EX.  Did Schenck’s arrest for handing out anti-war leaflets violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech? Can include an additional discussion question on the issue

c. Slide 5:   Summarize the Supreme Court’s decision in the case. 

c. Slide 6:   Detail the social and political impacts of the Supreme Court’s decision.  This impact can be short term, long term, or both. How does this affect the US today? Recent issues on the matter?

c. Slide 7:   Full MLA citations.  

0. Students should have at least 3 reliable sources correctly documented in Noodletools.  At least 5-7 quality notecards are required in Noodletools.

1. The slides should be written IN YOUR OWN WORDS. If you use any direct quotes please correctly cite those.

2.  Graphics and color will help  your Criterion C  grade.  Typos and grammatical errors will hurt your Criterion C grade, so by all means do a check for both.  All projects must strictly adhere to the slide guidelines above.  Failure to do so will greatly reduce your grade.  You should include in-text citations on the slides to document which source you got specific information from.

3. List of Supreme Court Cases to choose from:

Sample In-Text Citations

(author last name)

If no author (“Article Title”)

Brown vs. Board of Education - segregation

TLO vs. New Jersey - searches in public schools

Korematsu vs. US - Japanese Americans during WWII

Plessy vs. Ferguson - segregation

Roe vs. Wade - abortion rights

Texas vs. Johnson - burning American flag

Tinker vs. Des Moines - protest in schools

Loving vs. Virginia - interracial marriage

Obergefell vs. Hodges - gay marriage

Abington vs. Schempp - Bible readings in public schools 

Schenck vs. US or Abrams vs. US - espionage and WWI

Miranda vs. Arizona - rights to have an attorney

Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke - race and college acceptance

DC vs. Heller - gun ownership

Worcester vs. Georgia - Native American land

Buck vs. Bell - forced sterilization 

Engel vs. Vitale -school prayer

Brandenburg vs. Ohio - violent speech