Much of the content in Fixing America: Essays on Domestic and Foreign Policy was developed while preparing lesson plans for my 38 year public school teaching career. The original plan for this work was to include two lesson plans as chapters, and models of how one may investigate complex historical issues, policies and rulings in a classroom Socratic Seminar for high school students.
Each plan posted on this website is free for use or adaptation by any professional educator or media outlet. Each will have one or more primary source documents, Web links for supportive or background information, and an introduction to the conflicting values, attitudes or agendas promoted by one or more sides. With my back ground in US History, literature, political science, philosophy, and Western Civilization Humanities, dozens of tested lesson plans will be released over time. My initial web post will include the two I had planned to add as chapters of my book, until my editor talked me out of it. She insisted it had to be a book of essays or a book of lesson plans. She was correct, and this website will slowly become my book of lesson plans applicable to multiple subject areas of a standard high school curriculum.
My first lesson plan is meant to promote class discussion of the appropriateness of The Dred Scott supreme court decision.
My second lesson plan is a student role-playing exercise assisting students in researching the history of, and the attempts to resolve, the Israeli – Palestinian crisis and debate.
James Sawatzki Publications 