1. The teacher will ask students to recall the main philosophies, concepts and ideologies of the Enlightenment and Pre-Enlightenment Eras learned in the previous lesson.
2. Students will assess their prior knowledge about the Enlightenment and Pre-Enlightenment Eras by using Brainpop Game.
3. The teacher will show a short video about the three branches of the federal government. He/she will then tape a chart of the U.S. government branches on the front wall.
4. The teacher will have cards with key vocabulary and terms prepared in advance. Students may borrow the cards throughout the lesson. Cards have varying levels of information to address leveled and differentiated learning.
5. Students will be separated into small groups of three or pairs where they will collaborate on the assignment about the three branches of the national (federal) government.
6. The teacher will write the three branches of the national (federal) government on the KWL chart (hanging on the wall in the front of the room), and students will follow along writing on the new information on their KWL handouts.
7. Students will be instructed to become Detectives or Crime Scene Investigators (CSI) to learn about the three branches of government, extracting main ideas and key elements from readings and other teacher-selected sources (e.g., government/other websites, articles, textbook, etc.).
8. Students will work as detectives or CSIs in groups of three. Using technological devices (e.g., computers, Ipads, laptops, etc.) each group will gather information from teacher-selected articles and the textbook. They will also use teacher-selected online videos and websites (e.g., National Archives).
9. Students will then organize their knowledge by completing the KWL Chart (distributed earlier).
10. Then each student will create a diagram, artistic representation, or a flyer with a brief description (one paragraph) explaining the three branches of government at the federal level.
11. Problem-solving and analysis-skills like detectives or CSIs to decide whether they will
--create a new federal (national) government branch system for America,
--create a new country with three federal government branches OR
--adhere to the current system and present their opinion through a digital software
--produce or create a product (e.g., wiki, digital story, website, etc.).