Portfolio Assignment 2

Discover examples of Bill of Rights issues in current events.

Follow the instructions for the assignment below. Save your assignments so they are easy to find when it is time to submit them in Portfolio 1.

Bill of Rights Newspaper Assignment

Throughout this unit we have discussed some of the history of the Bill of Rights as well as Bill of Rights issues that have arisen from this great document. To help you see that Bill of Rights issues continue to come up in our everyday lives, you will be asked to cut and paste two newspaper articles (or letters to the editor) from any newspaper or online news site within the last three months that portray Bill of Rights issues.

You will need to write a short caption (three lines or more) for each of the articles explaining why you chose these as representative samples of the Bill of Rights in current events. In the caption you will also need to cite the appropriate amendment to the Constitution. It is important that you differentiate between issues dealing with the Bill of Rights and issues dealing with the Constitution (the Constitution is covered in unit 1).

In summary, you will need to cut (or copy) and paste two news articles dealing with Bill of Rights issues. You can either physically cut out newspaper articles, paste them on paper, write in the captions, and scan in these documents, or you can copy news articles you find on the internet and paste the opening sections into a word processing document. Make sure you cite the article title, author, date, and source of the article. In your caption, you will need to explain how the article connects to the Bill of Rights and explicitly state the amendment to which your article connects. Be sure to look at the grading rubric before beginning the assignment.

Options for Online News Sites

Examples of past newspaper headlines dealing with Bill of Rights issues:

  1. “Transcript: 9/11 bomber confesses.” The confession has brought up Bill of Rights issues because some say that the U.S. government forced a confession from the terrorist using “cruel and unusual” punishment, which conflicts with the eighth amendment.
  2. “Mystery Witness in NYPD probe.” This article deals with the sixth amendment: right to a jury trial.

Formatting Your Written Work

You will submit written assignments electronically through your course. To make sure that I can open and read your papers, please save them as DOCX files.

Grading Rubric
Assignment Not Acceptable 0 points Good 1 point Excellent 2 points
Unit 2: Bill of Rights Newspaper Assignment The captions are either left out or do not accurately connect the stories to Bill of Rights issues. At least one article cut (or copied) and pasted. The article has a caption accurately explaining why the news story connects to Bill of Rights issues. At least two articles are cut (or copied) and pasted. Each of the articles has a caption of three lines or more, accurately explaining why the news story connects to Bill of Rights issues. Each caption makes an accurate connection to the appropriate constitutional amendment.

Remember: Do not submit any assignment until you have completed all the assignments for portfolio 1!