Presents a lesson for grades 4-12 which examines the attorney's role in court. Provides presentation guidelines for a visiting attorney and includes a classroom role play which can help students understand a lawyer's role in a trial and the way in which questions are used to prove a case. (GEA)

Reviews a Document Reading Activity Packet (DRAP) revolving around the "Fort Washington Incident" of the War of 1812 and the resulting court martial of Captain Samuel T. Dyson. Explains this exercise is designed to stimulate students' interest in their own state histories as well as stimulate their curiosity for further research. (BSR)

Offers an instructional unit about city-states in Ancient Greece and provides an instructional design model that may be used in similar efforts. Appropriate for grades 6-12, this unit acquaints students with Greek city-states, their locations, main characteristics, social and political structures, origins, and evolution. (GEA)

Presents a lesson plan which uses role playing to teach secondary students about sectionalism and its effects on a nation. Set during the Constitutional Convention, students, as participants, learn about the three main areas of conflict, the viewpoints of each section of the country, and the importance of compromise as they argue and defend their…

Presents a six-day lesson in which two different classes role play the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to simulate the bicameral nature of the U.S. government. Students use actual federal or state legislation or write their own bills, and then work through the process of passing them into law or rejecting them. (GEA)

Presents a three-day lesson, which requires students to evaluate selected Supreme Court cases and determine how they think the cases were decided and which amendments were applicable. Includes eighteen cases for student deliberation, followed by the actual Supreme Court decisions. (GEA)

Provides a lesson plan for high school students which addresses how the electoral college elects the President and Vice President of the United States. The content of the lesson is divided into five interrelated parts which are distributed to separate groups of students. The students must share their group work to complete the lesson. (JDH)

Describes a lesson plan used to introduce K-3 students to a Canadian Inuit artist, to the personal and cultural context of the artwork, and to a simple printmaking technique. Includes background information on the artist, instructional strategies, and a print of the artist's "Young Owl Takes a Ride." (GEA)

Uses a print of Homer's painting, "The Fox Hunt," to introduce students in grades 4-6 to paintings of wildlife as both factual record and as a storytelling medium. Includes learning objectives, instructional strategies, and background information on the artist. (GEA)

Describes three pairs of lessons in which the same skill taught to the same kinds of students by identically trained teachers result in noticeable differences in what students remember following instruction. Focuses on how student understanding of lesson content is influenced by relatively subtle differences in what a teacher says. (HOD)

Excerpts are presented from a teacher's diary of her first year of teaching gifted primary grade students. Principles learned over the first year include: (1) lesson planning must be flexible; (2) gifted students prefer subject matter content to brain exercises; and (3) work in the affective domain is as essential as study in the cognitive realm.…

Included are brief articles on a laboratory approach for teaching basic geometry, having students give examples, and trigonometry and design. (MNS)

Cites six new ERIC documents for teaching economics in the elementary and secondary classroom. Topics include: teaching strategies; free and inexpensive materials; software; unions; and lifestyles. Also indicates how the documents can be ordered or searched for. (TRS)

Presents a lesson plan based on John Singleton Copley's 1795 oil painting, "Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd." The goal of the lesson is to give students in grades four through six an awareness of portraiture and how portraits record not only character but historical times and customs. (JDH)

"At the Piano," an oil-on-canvas painting completed in 1859 by James Abbot McNeill Whistler, is used as the basis of a lesson designed to help junior high school students analyze the painting's mood, subject matter, and composition. (JDH)