The ideas shared in this article provide a range of classroom activities that can add interest, variety, and depth to middle and high school social studies classrooms. They suggest ways for teachers to move teaching about trials—and law-related education—from the periphery to a more central place in the curriculum. And, they identify a range of strategies for actively involving students in meaningful instruction. To help students begin their study of famous trials, this strategy asks them to choose and research a significant historical or contemporary trial, seeking to explain its significance to the past and the present. This lesson can be found at Update on Law-Related Education, 23.1, 1999, pp. 35–36.

Objectives