Diagramming the Preamble

January 17, 2008

Beautiful, indeed!

I’ve often recommended students diagram the Preamble to the Constitution, to better understand the source of authority in our government (“We, the People”).

Betsy (I have no surname) sent me a link to this:

Preamble to the Constitution as your English teacher wishes you would have diagrammed it. JPEG version

Preamble to the Constitution as your English teacher wishes you would have diagrammed it.

Sentence diagram of the Preamble to the Constitution

Sentence diagram of the Preamble to the Constitution. GIF version

 

The work is done at a the site of Capital Community College, their “Guide to Grammar and Writing.”

Here’s the Preamble as it usually appears:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I wonder: Has anyone diagrammed the Mayflower Compact?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Betsy at The Reality Based News Feed, and to Boing Boing.

5 Comments | Historic documents, History, History images, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Bush continues push to make U.S. a banana republic

January 2, 2008

Some of us were still digesting the heart- and conscience-rending story of the Navy Judge Advocate General (JAG) who resigned rather than continue to work in an organization that unethically endorsed torture, when we also became aware of the Bush administration’s plan to politicize the justice operations of the U.S. military. (See Geneva Conventions, here.)

Jurist, a news organ from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, with the short version here (with a recounting of other political troubles in JAG); the Boston Globe has the longer version here.

It’s the sort of move one expects from Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharaf; it’s the sort of move one would expect President Hugo Chavez to try in Venezuela, before the college students and military shout him down. It’s a banana republic-style action. It’s a move beneath a U.S. politician. Or, it should be.

If Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter were alive today, you can bet this proposal would be dead.

For high school history and government teachers, these are exciting times. Abuses of the Constitution and potential crises cross the headlines every day. Each of these stories tells students the importance of knowing government and where the levers of power are.

Jan Carlzon at SAS Airline used to say people armed with knowledge cannot help but act. We must be missing the boat — where is the action?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

2 Comments | Government, Justice, Law, Politics, Presidents, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Next Entries »