Ideals found in the Declaration of Independence

Today we read chapter two and discussed the ideals of the United States as they are outlined in the Declaration of Independence. The ideals that were established in the Declaration of Independence include: Democracy, Opportunity, Liberty, Equality, Rights.We defined these ideals and provided examples of them from both history and today.

We also were assigned a five+ paragraph essay. The essay is to respond to the following question: Have Americans lived up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence? The instructions for this essay can be found at this link. The scoring guide that will be used for this essay is the regular scoring guide that students have seen for the last few years. That scoring guide can be accessed from this link.

We began collecting evidence that might support our positions for the essay. We did this by looking at eighteen images and identifying if the image is an example of America's success or failure in living up to a particular ideal. Some of the images could show success or failure for multiple ideals. Some could even be interpreted as showing both success and failure of a particular ideal (again this will be influenced by one's perspective and any view is acceptable so long as their is evidence to support for that view).