Landmark Supreme Court Cases Project

Grade level

Middle school / early high school (best fit: grades 7–10)

Class Time

1-2 weeks (2–3 days for research and 1–3 days for creating the final product)

Warm-up

Prompt: “What topic in government interests you most, and why?” (e.g.: freedom of speech, equal rights, executive power, elections, etc.).

Choose or Assign a Case

You can either assign a case to students or have them choose one of 34 landmark cases organized by topic (speech, religion, press, 2nd Amendment, rights of the accused, 14th Amendment, executive branch, elections, and more). These can be done independently or with students working together in pairs or small groups.

You can also elect to first review some of the major court cases with the PowerPoint or Google Slides file to briefly introduce studenst to the basics of the cases. 

Research the Case

Students complete research on four required categories:

• Case Overview (who, what happened, arguments)
• Constitutional Question (why SCOTUS heard it / what constitutional issue was at stake)
• Court Decision (ruling, vote count, majority/dissent if applicable)
• Significance (impact on the U.S.; whether students think it was fairly settled)

The lesson download includes links to various online sources students can use in addition to your school library or online databases. 

Create a Real World Final Product

Students pick from a menu of career-based roles (examples: blogger, podcaster, broadcast news reporter, museum curator, documentary filmmaker, graphic designer, website developer, and more) and produce a final product that teaches the case using their strengths and interests.

Share With the Class

You can elect to allow some or all students to share their creations with the rest of the class or your school community. For an extension, have students connect their case to a current Supreme Court case using SCOTUS blog.