Assignment Content
Constitutional amendments exist to correct perceived gaps in the U.S. Constitution. In previous weeks, we examined the U.S. Bill of Rights and the process for constitutional amendments. For this assignment, you will consider a possible constitutional amendment and create a presentation or letter to an editor explaining why such an amendment is either necessary or unnecessary.
Choose one of the amendment issue options listed below. **Your assignment must be based on constitutional and landmark U.S. Supreme Court case arguments that you’ve learned about in this class—NOT just on your opinion.**
Amendment Issue Options – select one
Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to create term limits for members of Congress?
Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to repeal the Second Amendment and ban the personal ownership of any type of firearm?
Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to remove the birthright citizenship clause currently contained in the 14th Amendment?
Choose Submission Format – select one
Create a 15- to 20-slide presentation (using Microsoft® PowerPoint® or a program of your choice ****with speaker’s notes in a separate word document.**** Do not put your speaker’s notes into the notes section of PowerPoint; Blackboard’s inline grading feature cannot read them and therefore I cannot see them.
Write an 875- to 1050-word letter to a newspaper/magazine/political news website editor.
Proposal Structure:
Introduction – what amendment issue option is your presentation or paper about? Will you be supporting it or arguing against it as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Provide a brief history of the issue.
Discuss why you support amending the U.S. Constitution or do not support amending the U.S. Constitution for the amendment option you selected. What are the pros of your amendment proposal? What are the cons? Why do the pros outweigh the cons OR why do the cons outweigh the pros?
Tie your argument to what you have learned about the U.S. Constitution and American national government in this class (e.g., how does your proposal maintain/protect federalism, the separation of powers, representative democracy, our civil liberties, and/or our civil rights).
Conclusion – summarize the main points of your presentation or paper.
Reference list – list the sources you used in your presentation or paper.
If you are creating a letter to an editor, you should:
Create an engaging opening and motivating closing.
Structure your argument point by point.
Include a reference list with at least three sources, use in-text citations, formatted to APA 7 guidelines.
If you are creating a presentation, you should:
Include introduction and conclusion slides.
Include detailed speaker notes in a separate word document.
Include a reference list with at least three sources, use in-text citations, formatted to APA 7 guidelines.
MECHANICS
Incorporate vocabulary terms from this week’s materials into your response, and use the resources provided in the Readings & Videos folder and in your instructor’s discussion posts.
Include in-text citations and a reference list with a minimum of three sources in APA 7 format to support your assignment. Do not use Wikipedia, Quora, Yahoo Questions or other crowdsourced websites as references. You may use the formatted references provided for the materials in the Readings & Videos folder and in your instructor’s discussion posts.
Do not rely on direct quotes/copying passages wholesale from your sources; no more than 15% of your assignment can be direct quotes – this means put concepts/ideas into your own words to show that you understand them.
Do not rely solely on AI to write your assignments, this is not your own original work and may result in an automatic 0 and being reported to the university for plagiarism.
Format your assignment according to APA 7 guidelines.
