CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROJECT GUIDELINES
This is a three part project designed to help you and your classmates develop a greater
understanding of the United States Constitution and its amendments. Each of you will be assigned an
amendment or some other portion of the Constitution to research. Through your research you will
complete the following:
1) Make a visual display depicting and explaining the amendment or topic you have been assigned.
This can be a movie, a website, a powerpoint presentation, a diorama, a model, write and perform a
play, write and sing a song, a movie script, a poster, etc. Virtually any visual idea you can come up
with to illustrate your project will be fine however, be advised, the grade you receive will be
determined in part by the difficulty level of your project. In other words, if you want an “A”, you have
a better chance of getting one if you make a movie than if you make a poster.
2) Using the visual project you have created, you will teach your classmates all about the amendment.
Since you will be teaching it, it is mandatory that you know and understand your amendment. I am
available everyday before school, at break and at lunch to help you. After school by appointment
only. Make sure you understand your amendment well enough to explain it to your classmates as well
as answer their questions. You will be graded on your presentation, how well you explain your
amendment plus how well you can answer questions from the audience.
3)During each amendment presentation, you will be required to take notes (in Cornell style) about the
amendment. You will be responsible for learning the meaning of each amendment and how it is
applied in the real world. Your notes will be collected and graded after the end of this unit. Also,
there will be a test on real life uses of the amendments so make sure you understand their meanings.
If your classmates presentations do not explain the topic well enough for you to understand be sure
to ask them to clarify their explanations.
Each section of this project will be scored separately however if you do not complete ALL THREE
portions of the project you will receive a score of zero on all three parts! You may NOT opt out of the
presentation portion of this project.
Bulletproof
The French and Indian War: Account of a British Officer
July 9, 1755
The American Indian chief looked scornfully at the soldiers on the field
before him. How foolish it was to fight as they did, forming their perfect
battle lines out in the open, standing shoulder to shoulder in their bright
red uniforms. The British soldiers—trained for European war—did not break
rank, even when braves fired at them from under the safe cover of the forest.
The slaughter continued for two hours. By then 1,000 of 1,459 British
soldiers were killed or wounded, while only 30 of the French and Indian
warriors firing at them were injured.
Not only were the soldiers foolish, but their officers were just as bad.
Riding on horseback, fully exposed above the men on the ground, they made
perfect targets. One by one, the chief’s marksmen shot the mounted British
officers until only one remained.
“Quick, let your aim be certain and he dies,” the chief commanded. The
warriors leveled their rifles at the last officer on horseback. Round after
round was aimed at this one man. Twice the officer’s horse was shot out from
under him. Twice he grabbed a horse left idle when a fellow officer had been
shot down. Ten, twelve, thirteen rounds were fired by the sharpshooters.
Still, the officer remained unhurt.
The native warriors stared at him in disbelief. Their rifles seldom missed
their mark. The chief suddenly realized that a mighty power must be shielding
this man. “Stop firing!” he commanded. “This one is under the special
protection of the Great Spirit.” A brave standing nearby added, “I had
seventeen clear shots at him…and after all could not bring him to the ground.
This man was not born to be killed by a bullet.”
As the firing slowed, the lieutenant colonel gathered the remaining troops
and led the retreat to safety. That evening, as the last of the wounded were
being cared for, the officer noticed an odd tear in his coat. It was a bullet
hole! He rolled up his sleeve and looked at his arm directly under the hole.
There was no mark on his skin. Amazed, he took off his coat and found three
more holes where bullets had passed through his coat but stopped before they
reached his body.
Nine days after the battle, having heard a rumor of his own death, the young
lieutenant colonel wrote his brother to confirm that he was still very much
alive.
As I have heard since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of
my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the
first and of assuring you that I have not as yet composed the latter. But by
the all-powerful dispensations of Providence I have been protected beyond all
human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and
two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my
companions on every side of me!
This battle, part of the French and Indian War, was fought on July 9, 1755,
near Fort Duquesne, now the city of Pittsburgh. The twenty-three-year-old
officer went on to become the commander in chief of the Continental Army and
the first president of the United States. In all the years that followed in
his long career, this man, George Washington, was never once wounded in
battle.
Fifteen years later, in 1770, George Washington returned to the same
Pennsylvania woods. A respected Indian chief, having heard that Washington
was in the area, traveled a long way to meet with him.
He sat down with Washington, and face-to-face over a council fire, the chief
told Washington the following:
I am a chief and ruler over my tribes. My influence extends to the waters of
the great lakes and to the far blue mountains. I have traveled a long and
weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle. It was on
the day when the white man’s blood mixed with the streams of our forests that
I first beheld this chief [Washington].
I called to my young men and said, “Mark yon tall and daring warrior? He is
not of the red-coat tribe—he hath an Indian’s wisdom and his warriors fight
as we do—himself alone exposed. Quick, let your aim be certain, and he dies.”
Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss—
’twas all in vain, a power mightier far than we shielded you.
Seeing you were under the special guardianship of the Great Spirit, we
immediately ceased to fire at you. I am old and shall soon be gathered to the
great council fire of my fathers in the land of the shades, but ere I go,
there is something bids me speak in the voice of prophecy:
Listen! The Great Spirit protects that man [pointing at Washington], and
guides his destinies—he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet
unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire. I am come to pay
homage to the man who is the particular favorite of Heaven, and who can never
die in battle.
* * * * *
This story of divine protection and of Washington’s open gratitude could be
found in virtually all school textbooks until 1934. Now few Americans have
read it. Washington often recalled this dramatic event that helped shape his
character and confirm God’s call on his life