Course on the U.S. Supreme Court Promotes Minds-On Learning for Conceptual Understanding
Periodically I will use this blog space or other publications to spotlight certain elective courses that I believe speak to the value-added proposition we offer at Colorado Academy. In previous articles, we have looked at the Tiny House course, the interdisciplinary offering on Haiti, and the upcoming new AP course in Computer Science electives. All of those are relatively new offerings. This week I’d like to highlight an important class that has been in our catalog for several years.
Upper School students in the “Supreme Court: Living Constitution” class recently designed arguments explaining the Court’s 2015 decision to support gay marriage. Students are reading both majority and dissenting opinions in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The assignment was part of the “substantive due process and equal protection” section of the course, where teacher Luis Terrazas asked students to read and annotate legal opinions affecting gay rights and marriage in preparation for a project-based mock Supreme Court. In that authentic assessment, students will design original arguments while advocating a rule of law based upon a constitutional problem.
This elective has long been known as a meaningful and long-lasting learning experience for the students who take it. Juliana Rodriguez, Class of 2015, reported on her freshman year experience at Harvard recently: “I just got incredibly exciting news that I was selected to be one of just twelve college students who will take a seminar with Professor Laurence Tribe next semester titled 'Sex, Terror, and Technology: The Constitutional Law of Love and Hate.' I wanted to share this good news because I used a chunk of the application to talk about the influence of your Supreme Court seminar. I literally couldn't have done it without [this course]!”
According to Terrazas, “Every year students come home from college and tell me how critical it is for teachers in preparatory schools to teach basic reading and writing skills. Two alumnae from the Class of 2015 and both students at Middlebury, Jess Massinter and Henley Hall, say they read nearly 250 pages per week. When Terrazas asked them, ‘What skills ought I emphasize to better prepare my students for college?’ both said, ‘Teach them how to read, annotate and interpret texts. The reading load in college is extensive. What’s more, grades in all of my humanities courses are based entirely on essays. You should emphasize the kind projects that require extensive reading and writing, as that is exactly what we are doing in college.’”
So in that light, “Supreme Court: Living Constitution,” a course first designed more than a decade ago by Terrazas, is one of our strongest vehicles through which to prepare students to read, interpret, and analyze complex texts from United States history. This close analysis then informs their lively class discussion and subsequent essays.
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Upper School students in the “Supreme Court: Living Constitution” class recently designed arguments explaining the Court’s 2015 decision to support gay marriage. Students are reading both majority and dissenting opinions in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The assignment was part of the “substantive due process and equal protection” section of the course, where teacher Luis Terrazas asked students to read and annotate legal opinions affecting gay rights and marriage in preparation for a project-based mock Supreme Court. In that authentic assessment, students will design original arguments while advocating a rule of law based upon a constitutional problem.
This elective has long been known as a meaningful and long-lasting learning experience for the students who take it. Juliana Rodriguez, Class of 2015, reported on her freshman year experience at Harvard recently: “I just got incredibly exciting news that I was selected to be one of just twelve college students who will take a seminar with Professor Laurence Tribe next semester titled 'Sex, Terror, and Technology: The Constitutional Law of Love and Hate.' I wanted to share this good news because I used a chunk of the application to talk about the influence of your Supreme Court seminar. I literally couldn't have done it without [this course]!”
According to Terrazas, “Every year students come home from college and tell me how critical it is for teachers in preparatory schools to teach basic reading and writing skills. Two alumnae from the Class of 2015 and both students at Middlebury, Jess Massinter and Henley Hall, say they read nearly 250 pages per week. When Terrazas asked them, ‘What skills ought I emphasize to better prepare my students for college?’ both said, ‘Teach them how to read, annotate and interpret texts. The reading load in college is extensive. What’s more, grades in all of my humanities courses are based entirely on essays. You should emphasize the kind projects that require extensive reading and writing, as that is exactly what we are doing in college.’”
So in that light, “Supreme Court: Living Constitution,” a course first designed more than a decade ago by Terrazas, is one of our strongest vehicles through which to prepare students to read, interpret, and analyze complex texts from United States history. This close analysis then informs their lively class discussion and subsequent essays.
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