September 24th 2012

Again we find ourselves in the room of Mr.Boyle learning about United States history. Today we learned all about the Bill of Rights. To get a real understanding of these rights in a real-life, not really realistic scenerio created by Mr.Boyle himself. So, in a nutshell, the scenerio is about these party-goers that are having a blast at a Madonna concert on Mr. Roger Will's property on Sunday, which the Blue Laws prohibit. All of the characters get brought in, the party-goers got a bench trial and were sentenced with a day in the stocks, Roger Will got a trial jury and had to wait a few years for him to be sentenced to banishment and his farm sold off, and last but definitely not least, Madonna, who got a trial which ended up with her being hung. It was very saddening to hear that Madonna was killed in such a vicious way, but she had a nice career behind her. After we read this little scenerio we got to find the ammendments that the characters would have for appealing their convictions. A few of the most common ammendments that came up were the First Ammendment in which there is no law establishing a national religion, or the right of the people to peacefully assemble and the Sixth Ammendment which is that the people have a right to a speedy and public trial and have the assistance of a lawyer. Just to be clear what I have just stated aren't the ammendments in full, but the important pieces that go along with the scenerio. I found that learning the ammendments by having a fake scenerio really made me pay attention and enjoy learning them as opposed to  memorizing them off a sheet of paper. All in all today's class was surpisingly fun!