The Great Debate: Federalist vs. Anti-Federalist Constitutional Debate

These competitive debates ask students to analyze the Federalist and Anti-Federalist documents and create a persuasive speech and cross examination. Students are transported back into history after the Constitutional Convention to argue in front of a judge on behalf of the Federalists or Anti-Federalists for passage of our Constitution. Lesson provides a debate format that is set up similar to a court room in which the students will pretend to be the lawyers. Students have to use evidence from the primary source documents (provided) and cross examine witnesses to prove their point. Make teaching the state standards and primary sources fun and exciting in your classroom. Lesson provides a format on how to run debates, rubric for grading students, links for the primary sources and more.