Mr. Van Voorhis

Bronx School of Law and Finance

English 9

WebQuest:

Fahrenheit 451 and Texas v. Johnson

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. . . ."

—Chief Justice Earl Warren,

speaking for the majority

INTRODUCTION

In class, we are reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and learning about the burning and value of books. Today, we are going to begin researching another burning- the burning of the American flag.

Unlike in 451 where it was the law to burn books, Gregory Lee Johnson was arrested for burning an American flag. Johnson participated in a political protest outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, at which Johnson poured kerosene on an American flag and set it on fire. Several witnesses not participating in the protest were offended at Johnson's actions. At the time, Texas had a statute, which made it a crime to desecrate a state or national flag. Johnson was charged and convicted under this law. He appealed, arguing that the law was an unconstitutional infringement on his First Amendment rights.

What do you think about this?

Put yourself back in time and imagine you were living in Texas, 1984. The objective of this assignment is to get you to be able to research a Supreme Court trial on the internet and to have you defend or attack Johnson's actions based on your group's given assignment in an in-class mock trial.

OBJECTIVE/TASK

You will be responsible for handing in your research notes that you will be composing in class and in the lab. You will also be responsible for handing in a list of websites that you used to research the case. During the two week project, you should be working on a 3-5 page research paper, and a 1 page opinion paper at the end of the project.

PROCESS

This will be a 2 week project. First, you will break up into six groups of 4 and research the case of Texas v. Johnson in the computer lab. You will go to this website, http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/scales/texas.html to go the court case. By visiting this CompuLegal website, http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/scales/anyiss.html you will be able to create an issue question. We will be doing this in the computer lab in class, and your computer teacher will walk you through these steps.

The following day, we will meet in our classroom to begin our project. In your groups, you will discuss your findings concerning the case. Each group will have a recorder, presenter/reader, time-keeper, and monitor. Be prepared to defend both sides of the case, because you are then going to pretend that you are lawyers at this Supreme Court hearing and prepare for the trial. I will assign your group to be pro-Johnson or pro-Texas. Half of you will be prosecutors and half will be defense lawyers. You will get together for the remainder of the week to review for the case. The following week, we will then come together as a class and perform a mock hearing that should last the full week. You will then have the weekend to complete your research and opinion papers.

RESOURCES

1.) http://www.tcn.net/~opticom/Steve/texasvs.htm

2.) http://www.landmarkcases.org/texas/home.html

3.) http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/scotus_flag_main.html

EVALUATION

Rubric:

	A			B			C			D/F
Research (list of websites used, notes taken in class and at home)	Student will demonstrate excellent ability to navigate on the Web and find and use pertinent material to support their case.	Student will demonstrate good ability to navigate on the Web and find and use pertinent material to support their case.			Student will show satisfactory to navigate on the Web and find and use pertinent material to support their case.			Student will show unsatisfactory to navigate on the Web and find and use pertinent material to support their case.
Trial (in-class)	Student will present evidence and opinion clearly and thoroughly to class without interrupting or dominating trial.		Student will present evidence and/or opinion clearly to the class and shows knowledge of case.			Student will present evidence and/or opinion but shows little knowledge of case.			Student does not participate in trial and shows obvious lack of knowledge of case.
Report (3-5 pages)	Student will turn in excellent research paper, demonstrating ability to use online research to clearly express ideas with on-line bibliography.		Student will turn in clearly written research paper with on-line bibliography.			Student will turn in satisfactory written research paper but missing on-line bibliography.			Students fail to hand in satisfactory paper lacking bibliography.
Personal Opinion (1 page)	Students will express opinion on case demonstrating through knowledge of case.		Students will express opinion on case demonstrating knowledge of case.			Students will express opinion on case but show little knowledge of case.			Students will fail to express opinion on case demonstrating no knowledge of case.

CONCLUSION

At the end of this two week period, you should all have a thorough knowledge of the hearing of Texas vs Johnson, and will have had in-trial lawyer experience. You have now met acquired learning standards, English standards and social studies standards.

English SOCIAL STUDIES

STANDARDS 1,3,4 STANDARDS 1,5

Congratulations, you have just fought your first law case!!!!!