8th Grade Social Studies/ELA Mt. Pleasant Middle School My students are so excited to receive their pocket Constitutions from the 9.17 Society. They always ask, "Do we get to keep it?" They love having their own copy. One of the ways I use the pocket Constitutions in class is to do a "Walk Through the Constitution" scavenger hunt. I have them go through the Constitution Article by Article and answer questions from each article. For Article 1, Section 1 the questions are: Who has legislative power in the U.S.? This body has two parts. What are they? I do this for each article and section of the Constitution, so that students can become familiar with what is in the Constitution. Another way I use the pocket Constitutions in class is to teach the Bill of Rights. We do an in-depth study of the Bill of Rights, where the students read them all, put them into modern, kid-friendly language, and do a rank and reason with them. We have the Constitution in our textbooks, but the kids are so much more engaged when they have their own copy that they can flip through to find information and learn about how our government is structured. It makes the learning more fun than reading it out of a textbook. I can't thank the 9.17 Society and its generous donors enough for helping to inspire the kids to want to know about our Constitution.

Supporting the 917 Society and its movement in Broward & Florida is crucial for several compelling reasons. Ensuring that every 8th grader across Florida & the United States has access to a pocket constitution and understands the significance of the Constitution of the United States & the Bill of Rights is vital for nurturing informed, engaged, and responsible citizens. This education equips young minds with the knowledge and awareness needed to exercise their rights and responsibilities as active participants in our democracy. I am deeply passionate about this cause because it empowers our youth with the tools to appreciate the foundational principles that our nation was built upon, fostering a sense of civic duty and a commitment to upholding the values of liberty, justice, and equality for generations to come. By supporting the 917 Society, we can ensure that our children are not only informed about their constitutional rights but also inspired to protect and preserve the precious freedoms that define our great nation.

For years my department at Stewarts Creek Middle School in Smyrna, Tennessee had been concerned about our former, current, and future students’ lack of knowledge and understanding about American Government and Civics. We had been contemplating implementing a civics-based unit for some time but had not found the inspiration to take the risk of losing valuable instructional time in those pursuits. That all changed three years ago when we received our first shipment of the 9-17 Society’s Pocket Constitutions. These gifts where a game-changer and we immediately set about a plan to not only get these booklets (we refer to them as the Blue Book) into the hands of our students, but to fully implement them as the base text for a new program of instruction which is now on The 917 Society Resource Page.