Do you know about ALL of the amendments to the Constitution? Can you tell me what each one changed or added to the Constitution? I can’t (gasp). I’m betting your students can’t either (and probably you neither, unless you’ve been teaching Civics for a while). Well, I found this video that gives some quick pneumonic devices to help you remember some of the more important amendments. You don’t necessarily need to show this to your students, but I would watch it and go over these tricks with your students (and use them yourself). The tip about the Reconstruction amendments is pretty helpful.
The one that he didn’t cover, which I think is super-important, is the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. I actually scoured the internet (ok, I looked for 10 minutes) to see if anyone else had tips for remembering the 19th, and I couldn’t find anything useful! I used to tell my students to imagine a bunch of women standing in line to vote wearing t-shirts that say “19” or imagine a bunch of girls jumping up and down squealing, “I’m 19!” You know, that would be a good extra credit assignment; have students come up with easy and creative ways to remember the some of the important amendments.
Do you have any neat ways to remember amendments? Leave them in the comments below!