Judicial Interpretation: An Introduction

Abstract

I teach at an urban school in the Bay Area; the student population reflects the diversity in our larger community. The U.S. govern ment course that I teach is a one semester (nine week) survey course for seniors. Higher skilled students choose the Advanced Placement alternative, so my students' reading and writing skills are middling to poor. We have no government textbook. Through simulations, group projects, lectures, and guest speakers, we try to offer a conceptual oudine for Congress and the presidency, local government, political ideology, etc. Many students enroll in a separate one semester elective course, Law and Justice, so the judicial branch receives less attention than the other two branches in our government curriculum. In the lesson that follows, I present complex issues of judicial interpretation in their most basic form so as not to overwhelm the weak reading and analytic skills of my own students. I have included a bibliography so that teachers of higher skilled students can find more nuanced and sophisticated material.