We need Prayer Back in School: Freedom Of Speech

Katherine Victoria Vananderland
Jul 1, 2020
3 min read

Freedom Of Speech

Lesson Plan #60

Teacher: Miss Katherine Victoria VanAnderland

Date: 06/23/2020

Overview & Purpose

Most students in American classrooms know the words to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. The words are a kind of automatic language. We say them easily—perhaps every day, but we may not think in detail about what we are saying. This lesson plan asks students to explore this rote learning and their own right to freedom of speech by examining the Pledge of Allegiance from a historical and personal perspective and in relationship to fictional situations in novels they have read. Using a novel such as Speak by Laurie Halse Andersen or Nothing But the Truth by Avi, students learn how the novel's protagonist and other characters in the story deal with free speech issues in varying ways and are invited to think about pledges that they are willing to make and how they express their freedom of speech.

Education Standards

Critical Thinking
Language Analysis
Problem Solving

Objectives

Students will understand the Pledge of Allegiance
Students will be able to make their own pledge of Allegiance
Students will use analysis skills to understand the language

Materials Needed

Verification

Steps to check for student understanding

Students Will complete the worksheets and adapt their own allegience
They can come up with their own constitution for their Country from the other Lesson
Will identify the rhetoric of the Star Spangled Banner use info from other lesson #60

Activity

Describe activity that will reinforce the lesson

Many people celebrate the Fourth of July as the birthday of the United States, but the actual events on that day involved only a half dozen people. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved and signed by the officers of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Most of the other members signed during a ceremony on August 2.

Is the Fourth of July the day the U.S. declared its independence? Explore all the dates during the summer of 1776 that are associated with the Declaration of Independence:

July 2: Declaration of Independence Resolution adopted by the Continental Congress
July 4: Declaration of Independence signed by the officers of the Continental Congress
July 8: First public reading of the Declaration of Independence
August 2: Declaration of Independence signed by 50 of the 56 men who signed the document

Explore texts that include the stories surrounding the Declaration of Independence. Possibilities include reference books, encyclopedias, and specific texts, examples of which appear in the Independence Day Book List. With your students, consider why there are so many different dates and why we celebrate the nation's birthday on July 4.

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

In "By Design or By Habit," Frank Hubbard asks his students to think carefully about the words that we say as a result of rote memorization, such as the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, the "Star-Spangled Banner," or a religious prayer or quotation. Hubbard calls such memorized pieces "automatic language." They are pieces "with language that has been so routinized or memorized that its user finds the language invisible, or nearly so" (4). By examining language word-by-word, students are challenged to "focus on the intention, the meaning behind the words, thus helping them reclaim something from its automatic status and restore it to a living and vital form" (4).

Not internalizing such automatic language can have unexpected consequences. A recent Knight Foundation report "found that three out of four students say either that they do not think about the First Amendment or that they take its rights for granted." (Aronson, 2006)

In this lesson, students think not only about the words they say when they recite the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, but also the specific words of the First Amendment to the Constitution and what the right to freedom of speech means on a personal level.

Further Reading

Hubbard, Frank 1984. "By Design or By Habit: Writing and Learning about Automatic Language." Courses for Change in Writing: A Selection from the NEH/Iowa Institute. Eds. Carl H. Klaus and Nancy Jones. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, pp. 3-21.

Aronson, Deb. "The First Amendment: A Powerful Way to Teach Critical Thinking." Council Chronicle (Sept. 2006).

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