There are a lot of reactions to Hammurabi's decisions. Students generally strongly agree or disagree. The lesson lends itself to a writing activity where students write letters to the editor of the Babylonian Times newspaper. The lesson can begin and end there and would require about a week to do the group activities and write good letters to the editor. However, if further depth is desired, there are additional activities listed that could be incorporated across the curriculum in Math, History, Drama, Creative Writing, Science, Art, Home Economics, and Computer Technology.
All information needed for the activity is located on the lesson web site.
For well written letters to the editor, it is important that students understand the writing process and can effectively edit their work and that of their peers. One of the problems facing early civilizations was setting up laws to govern themselves once people started living in communities instead of hunting, gathering, and roaming for food. Four thousand years later, we take a lot of this for granted. But, it is a slow process, and we are still trying to perfect it today. This activity is designed to give the students a taste of the problems that early people faced when they found the need to govern themselves.