Expanding the Vote
Has the right to vote in the United States changed over time?
Students will explore the tension throughout United States history in expanding the elective franchise. This tension draws into question some of the Declaration of Independence’s founding principles: popular sovereignty, republicanism, and equality.
Objectives:
- Students will identify patterns and changes in voting rights over time in the United States.
- Students will analyze the relationship between voting and popular sovereignty.
- Students will assess the influence their right to vote has on both internal and external political efficacy.
Assessment:
- Primary source guided questions
- Webquest
- Exit Ticket
Resources
Download Lesson
DownloadFeatured Lesson Plans
An Unfinished Promise
In this lesson, students will first explore three primary sources that help students think about what the founding generation thought about the idea and ideal of equality. Students engage in inquiry by using the text of the primary sources to generate an answer to the first compelling question. Students then use evidence and reasoning to support their claim. In the second part of the lesson, students investigate additional primary sources to see how the ideals of human equality in the Declaration of Independence have inspired change throughout American history.
Promises and Protections: Are Rights Equal for Everyone?
Students will investigate whether natural rights have been equally protected for all people in the United States throughout history. Through analysis of constitutional rights, Jim Crow laws, voting rights expansion, and civic discussion, students will examine how rights and freedoms have been protected, limited, and expanded over time.
Protecting Rights
Students will analyze how government power has been defined and limited over time through Influences on the Founding, various Founding Documents, and landmark Supreme Court cases.