The United States Supreme Court

Introduction	Task	Process
Resources	Evaluation	Indiana Academic Standards

Introduction:

Are you ready to be deeply immersed into the world of law? Has law always interest you? Well you are all now lawyers and Supreme Court justices of the United States. You will all need to rely on your background and class discussion on famous U.S. Supreme Court cases as well as the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Task

Your task is to create a mock Supreme Court case.
There will be ten groups of three students.
There will be two lawyers to argue each side of the case.
Three teachers will serve as Justices of the Supreme Court.
Each group member must help research the case.
All group members must agree to the type of case that will be created.
Groups may choose either cases that involve the constitution, education, employment, citizenship, civil rights, or criminal cases.

Process

As you know, cases that are brought to the Supreme Court have usually been ruled on already in the lower

court. Decide what verdict or decision was rendered on your case. One of the chosen attorney's will argue

to uphold the decision and the other attorney will argue to overturn the decision. One group member will

give the court the background information on the case. There is no right or wrong verdict that can be

rendered by the justices. Make sure you have researched your type of case will. Look for other cases

similar to the case you have chosen help you gain more information. You may also use props and chats if

you deem they are necessary. Good Luck.

Resources

The United States Supreme Court

Review the Rules of the Supreme Court.

U.S. Courts

U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Labor

Evaluation

You will be evaluated on how well you researched you case and how well you presented your case.

Rubric Template

(Describe here the task or performance that this rubric is designed to evaluate.)

	Beginning 0	Developing 10	Accomplished 20	Exemplary 30	Score
Research	Did no research	Did minimum research	Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting mastery of performance.	Description of identifiable performance characteristics reflecting the highest level of performance.
Oral Presentation	Did Not do a presentation	minimal work done	moderate	excellent presentation
Creativity and props	Used no props at all.	Used the minimum number of props	Used some props and creativity	Used the internet and Power Point

Nicole Binion. Last updated 11/16/04

Indiana Academic Standards

Conclusion

I hope that you have all enjoyed being lawyers for the day. You now have a better understanding of how

the Supreme Court functions and they types of cases they handle and why. You have also learned how to

better interact with your classmates to accomplish your goal. If you are still interested in the Supreme

Court you can always return to the Supreme Court web site to view cases they are now handling and the

verdicts of the cases.