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Teacher Resources: Lesson Plan

ERA: Its Effect on U.S. Society

Overview

Society's views of women's abilities have changed since the American Revolution. As seen in the The Court and Gender Essay, the Supreme Court's rulings have often helped to change society's perceptions of women. The ERA movement attempted to advance women's rights. Students will examine the goals of the movement, its gains, and failures and its effect on the views of U.S. society towards women's issues.

National Curriculum Standards met by this lesson

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Time Required

2-3 50-minute class periods

Materials Needed

Chalkboard or Overhead
Internet access for students or a class set of research materials
Class set of the worksheet (listed below)

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

As a class opener, write the following question on the board:

Should men and women be treated equally in all situations? Why or why not? Give an example.

Ask students to answer the question in their journal or on a piece of paper.
When students are finished, ask how many replied yes and how many no. Ask for volunteers to share their reasons.
Assign the The Court and Gender Essay for homework.

Procedures

The class will work on a web quest to learn about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Ideally, the class will have access to computers with Internet capability. If not, the teacher can print out packets of information for the students to use. Although there are many websites the discuss ERA, listed below are websites that have the information needed.

National Organization for Women (NOW):
http://www.now.org/index.html

NOW is a major proponent of the ERA. Their website has good background information about the issues that affect women today. Use the following links on the site for information:

10 for Change: on this page, click on the links under Key Issues. Here the group lists facts about inequality in the United States.

Legislation that Affects Women: this page discusses current proposals that would impact women.

Issues tab: click on Constitutional Equality, and on that page click the link for History of the ERA.

Alice Paul Institute:
http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/

This site is completely devoted to the ERA. There are links for information on its history, supporters of the amendment, and their strategy to keep ERA alive.

Eagle Forum:
http://www.eagleforum.org/era/

This is a link to its STOP ERA page. This site is an excellent source of information on opponents of ERA.

Under ERA History, the link "Top ten cases that prove the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would have been a disaster" goes to a page with summaries of cases that support the opponents reasoning against ERA.

Links in the Overview box will provide information on the possible negative results of an ERA Amendment.

Exploring Constitutional Conflicts:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/era.htm

This website explores the ERA Amendment. It features a summary of cases that effected women's rights and a link to the Chronology of the ERA movement (it links to the NOW page listed above). It also has questions to answer about the movement. This site is good to use with advanced students or a political science class.

Have students select a partner or assign a partner to each student. Explain that they will be researching information about the Equal Rights Amendment. Each pair will have a worksheet (below) to complete. Students should complete the sheet using the information they find on the websites.

Names: ___________________________

ERA WORKSHEET

Answer the following questions using information from the Internet. The websites listed below are excellent sources of information:
http://www.now.org/index.html
http://www.equalrightsamendment.org
http://www.eagleforum.org/era

Identify the following people and their contribution to ERA. Include whether they are proponents or opponents of the ERA.

1. Alice Paul--

___________________________________________________________

2. Betty Friedan--

___________________________________________________________

3. Shirley Chisholm--

___________________________________________________________

4. Bella Abzug--

___________________________________________________________

5. Phyllis Schlafly--

___________________________________________________________

What are the following organizations? What are their goals?

6. NOW (National Organization for Women)--

___________________________________________________________

7. National Women's Political Caucus--

___________________________________________________________

Explore the reasons people support or oppose an equal rights amendment. Provide five reasons for each side.

Supporting reasons for an amendment

___________________________________________________________

Opposing reasons for an amendment

___________________________________________________________

After having explored both sides of the equal rights amendment debate, what is your opinion on the ERA? Would the amendment have a positive effect on U.S. society, or would the amendment have negative effects? Decide whether you are a proponent or an opponent, and write your opinion with factual support below.

___________________________________________________________

Assessment

In order to assess students' work, collect the worksheet from each group. Score the worksheet on a 100-point scale:
10 points for each person and organization (70 points total)
2 points per supporting or opposing reason (20 points total)
10 points for a well-written opinion (10 points total)

Related Works

Women in Politics--this is a chronology of women's participation in politics. Museum of Women's History:
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm

History of the Supreme Court--this is an interactive timeline, featuring major court cases affecting women. Links to other related websites are included:
The History of the Supreme Court Time Line

Interdisciplinary Works

Language Arts: Divide students into supporters of the ERA and opponents of the ERA. Have the two groups debate each other.

Political Science: Have students develop an amendment to the Constitution.