Comments on: Teaching Constitutional Law

By: DCLawyer

DCLawyer — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:46:53 +0000

Some Louis Fisher would be useful to deal with #4. He definitely takes a much more holistic approach.

As to #3, good luck with that!

By: AdamJ

AdamJ — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:00:51 +0000

The only way to really understand the subject and be able to analyze critically the issues arising is to understand the history as well as the context. I think assigning history along with the cases to be read may involve more work on the part of students, but it makes the learning experience complete and gives them the capability to understand and discuss the issues as well as potentially to change their views.

By: SusanS

SusanS — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:43:31 +0000

The con law courses I had all did really well on points 1-3, but I felt like they never even acknowledged number 4. I really wish that had been emphasized more; the overall impression the courses tended to leave is that constitutional law is the sole domain of the Supreme Court justices and is never shaped and influenced by outside government forces.

By: Vladimir

Vladimir — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:34:11 +0000

Which case book, out of curiousity, are you switching to, with more history?

By: Lori Ringhand

Lori Ringhand — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:08:41 +0000

I have had exactly the same experience teaching the individual rights portion of our con law curriculum. One thing I did last year was to reduce the number of cases students read and instead have them read the briefs submitted by the parties in the leading cases. I assigned the briefs a day before I assigned the decision itself.

I think this really helped the students better understand the nuances of the cases, and lessened the impulse to jump immediately to their preferred answer. It also brought con law into the realm of the actual practice of law – briefing and arguing cases – which seemed to encourage the students to think more critically about the materials.