In Congress Assembled

Selected Resources
for the Development of Extended Lessons

Center for Civic Education. We The People. Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 1995.

This study of constitutional government in the United States includes student texts written at three levels. We The People, Level One is designed for use with upper elementary students while Level Two includes appropriate materials for the development of a serious study of constitutional government at the middle school. We The People...The Citizen and the Constitution is the senior high text. There is a teacher's guide for each of the three texts.

Farrand, Max (ed.). The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.

This three volume study of the Federal Convention is an exceptional resource for teachers and senior high students. Volume III includes a number of letters from delegates which students can explore in order to examine the Framers from a more humanistic vantage point.

Hutson, James H. (ed.). Supplement to Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

This supplement includes a wealth of new material which came to the attention of scholars after the publication of Farrand's three volume study of the Constitutional Convention. The volume includes hundreds of personal letters from delegates and a number of George Washington's diary entries.

Kurland, Philip B., and Ralph Lerner (eds.). The Founders' Constitution: Major Themes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

The Founders' Constitution is a collection of thoughts, opinions, and arguments of the Founders. The collection includes an examination of the Congressional debates over a Bill of Rights and lists the seventeen amendments which the House of Representatives passed and sent to the Senate on 24 August 1789.

National Center for History in the Schools. The Evolution of the Bill of Rights. Los Angeles: Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles, 1992.

This is a complete teaching unit on the Bill of Rights based on primary source materials which may be adapted for use by middle school students.

Rakove, Jack N. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution.

Rakove reexamines the issues which the Framers of the Constitution had to solve and describes the ratification debates in detail. The work delves into the question of "originalism" and what role it should play in interpreting the Constitution.

Rossiter, Clinton (ed.). The Federalist Papers. New York: Penguin, 1961.

The brilliant defense of the Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay is an American classic. Hamilton's Federalist No. 1 on "Good Government" and No. 84 on the Bill of Rights are referenced in this unit of study.

Storing, Herbert J. (ed.). The Anti-Federalist: Writings by the Opponents of the Constitution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

A counterpart to The Federalist Papers, this one volume study includes essays in opposition to the Constitution. Brutus's letter To the Citizens of the State of New York argues for the need of a bill of rights to protect the people from government usurpation of power.

Veit, Helen E., Kenneth R. Bowling, and Charlene Bangs Bickford (eds.). Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

This is a comprehensive study of the First Congress and the debates over the Bill of Rights.