Group worksheet is distributed to each, and one group member is delegated to record the ideas of the group as a whole. Groups are instructed to discuss the issue and to try to arrive at a group consensus. If the group can't agree, dissenting opinions are recorded. The results of the group activity are discussed. Students are asked to think about various ways in which social equality can come about besides through legal mandate.
Individual work is graded and returned.
Group participation grades can be given if desired. Perry A. Zirkel, Phi Delta Kappa Ed. During the era of Reconstruction, black Americans' political rights were affirmed by three constitutional amendments and numerous laws passed by Congress. Racial discrimination was attacked on a particularly broad front by the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In 1883, the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 act, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give Congress authority to prevent discrimination by private individuals.