Separation of Church and State

Today on this date in 1925, the Tennessee passed the Butler Act, forbidding state funded schools from teaching evolution. This law lead to the Scopes trial, which pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryant.

This week, the Texas School Board voted to ban from its curriculum any teaching of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Here is the whole of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Today's entry deals with naturalization ceremonies for the LA District (including Orange County, San Bernardino, Riverside). To find out when the next ceremony is, click here

today's site...who's your rep?

first go here

once you know what your zip code + 4 number is, go here

type your number + 4 into the boxes on the left of the page and hit go. The name of your representative will come up...go to your rep's page for more information about your district.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some sites for today:

We are going to hear a shortened version of King's I Have A Dream speech. Soon after you will be asked to go here to fill in a short passage from the speech.

Go here for a short reading about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When you have finished the reading, complete the crossword puzzle with a partner.

grammar sites for adv. grammar (07/08/09)

first go here http://www.englishmedialab.com/grammar.html do the four exercises on simple past. Then follow up with the two on present continuous.

Several useful sites

The new questions divided into sections that break the test apart.

The US Citizenship Podcast from my friend Jennifer. This is Jennifer's wikispace, also with several good resources.

The EL Civics site has a wealth of resources for teaching citizenship. Here is a lesson on Ben Franklin.

Interactive quizzes on citizenship and history can be found here.

Here's one on how Congress works from Indiana University.

The San Diego International Rescue Committee has created this site with good resources for students. It has a lot of what is on the new test.

Real American Stories is a wonderful resource of stories both from naturalized citizens as well as those who were born here. Under the Heritage tab, one can find texts from important historical speeches.

The Top 100 Speeches from American Rhetoric offers 100 famous American speeches. Some of these are text only, some are short clips from the speeches, and in some cases (like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have A Dream, or Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation) there is a recording of the full speech. Written texts are provided for the audio portions of the speeches.

A site primarily for teachers in the k-12 arena, EDSITEment offers lessons plans for teaching different aspects of US civics and history. The We the People Project connects to host of lesson plans well beyond the scope of what is needed to pass the USCIS test. Clicking on the History and Social Studies tab at the top of the page leads one to lessons on such areas as Andrew Jackson's influence on party politics, or race relations in the North prior to the Civil War, or the Battle of Thermopylae. There are sites that lead to primary source documents, as well as other information. For the ESL teacher/student, most of this is unnecessary, but could be helpful for some background.

The Annenberg Foundation through Annenberg Media has a wealth of videos online for k12 teachers. Some of these are easy, some more difficult. As with EDSITEment, some of these are unnecessary when it comes to passing the USCIS test. A couple of useful areas (that would need editing just the same) are America's History in the Making, A Biography of America, The Constitution: That Delicate Balance. and Democracy in America offer activities and history for students. There are a couple other sites devoted to US history and Civics, but these are aimed at teachers.

Here is a democracy webquest. This is an assignment for students to carry out, possibly in the course of a week.

How the legislative process works

Here's a very good explanation of how laws are made in the U.S.

First there is this site, which is quite comprehensive.

And for the musical version there is this.