GAME GUIDE FOR TEACHERS
Thank you for choosing to play “Supreme Decision” with your class! We’re sure you and your
students will have fun with this exciting classroom tool. We’ve created this Game Guide to help
you understand what “Supreme Decision” is all about and to help you guide your students as
they play the game. Here are the questions this Game Guide will answer:
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What is “Supreme Decision”?
What does “Supreme Decision” teach?
Where will “Supreme Decision” fit into my civics curriculum?
What do my students need to know before they play “Supreme Decision”?
No surprises, please: What happens during “Supreme Decision”?
What is the object of the game?
How does scoring work?
Help! Where are the answers?
WHAT IS “SUPREME DECISION”?
“Supreme Decision” is a game that combines animation and interactive activities to give
students a peek into the inner workings of the Supreme Court. Students play a law clerk who
must listen in on judges’ deliberations, understand each issue, and identify which side of the
issue they agree with.
WHAT DOES “SUPREME DECISION” TEACH?
By playing “Supreme Decision,” students learn:
• What it’s like to be in the courtroom with the Supreme Court during an oral argument
• How the Supreme Court justices analyze cases to make decisions
• That a right such as “freedom of speech” isn’t as simple as it sounds, but involves many
considerations
• That the same right can be interpreted in opposite ways by different people
• How judges consider precedent cases when making a decision
• That the Supreme Court’s decisions appear in the form of a written opinion
With regard to the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, students learn that:
• Students have the right to freedom of speech at school, but the right has limits
• Something needs to be “speech” before it is protected
• There are different kinds of speech (political and cultural), and not all kinds receive the
same constitutional protection
• In schools, the need to educate may outweigh students’ right to freedom of speech
• Tinker v. Des Moines is an important case about students’ rights in school
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WHERE WILL “SUPREME DECISION” FIT INTO MY CIVICS CURRICULUM?
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When you introduce the Bill of Rights
o By playing Supreme Decision at this point, students gain an insight into the
complexity of constitutional rights. As you proceed through the rest of the Bill of
Rights and other important amendments, you will be in a better position to elicit
deeper discussion of what those rights really mean.
When you teach the judicial branch of government
o Supreme Decision will give depth to your unit on the judicial branch by showing
students how the Supreme Court actually works. Once students have this
understanding, you will be able to help them better understand comparisons to
other levels of the judicial branch such as the Court of Appeals and the trial
courts.
WHAT DO MY STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW BEFORE THEY PLAY “SUPREME DECISION”?
“Supreme Decision” is designed so that students learn what they need to know about the
Supreme Court and the First Amendment by playing the game. Even so, here is some
information that will help students have context going into the game:
• Students should know what the Constitution and the First Amendment are.
• Students should know that the Supreme Court exists and that it is the highest court in
the country.
• They should also know that people appeal cases to the Supreme Court when they think
a lower court did not apply the law correctly.
• Finally, it would help students to know that each Justice hires several law clerks who
research issues and help write opinions.
NO SURPRISES, PLEASE: WHAT HAPPENS DURING “SUPREME DECISION”?
First, students meet Justice Irene Waters, who welcomes students to the
Supreme Court and invites them to work with her on the fictional case Brewer
v. Hamilton Middle School. Next, students watch animated characters argue
this case before a fictional Supreme Court. (The individual justices are
fictional; the courtroom setup is not, except that clients do not stand with their
lawyers during oral argument.)
By watching the oral argument, students learn that Ben Brewer was suspended from his middle
school for wearing a band t-shirt to school in violation of the school’s no-band-t-shirt policy.
Ben argues that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech gives him the right to wear his
t-shirt to school, but the school argues that freedom of speech doesn’t apply if the shirts are
becoming disruptive by causing arguments between students.
After the oral argument, students are told that the justices are deadlocked 4-4, and that Justice
Waters will cast the deciding vote. Justice Waters instructs students to proceed through four
separate rooms. In each room, students will listen to a pair of justices argue a specific point
about the First Amendment right to freedom of speech as it applies to Ben’s case.
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After they listen, students must first identify which justice was arguing for the school and which
was arguing for Ben. Then they will complete an activity to demonstrate that they understand
the issue, decide which side of the issue they support, and decide whether that side of the issue
helps Ben or the school.
Here are the issues and activities in each room:
Room 1: Is a band t-shirt speech or fashion?
• The activity presents students with a series of objects that they
must identify as speech or fashion. (examples: ripped jeans,
anti-war armband) Students play until they have answered five
questions correctly.
Room 2: Should cultural speech get as much protection as political
speech?
• The activity presents students with a series of objects that they must
identify as political speech or cultural speech. (examples: political
campaign sign, sports trophy) Students play until they have answered
five questions correctly.
Room 3: Are limits on student speech good or bad for education?
• The activity presents students with a series of four images, each
depicting a different level of freedom of speech that could be
allowed at school. Students must place them along a continuum
that spans from “extremely limited speech” to “no limits on speech.”
Room 3: Does the Tinker case support Ben’s side or the school’s side?
• The activity presents students with one- or two-sentence excerpts from
the Tinker case and asks students to identify whether each statement
supports Ben’s side or the school’s side.
Finally, students return to Justice Waters’ chambers, where the Justice sums up the student’s
performance and final game score. Justice Waters explains that she has written a court opinion
based on the student’s recommendations for each issue. Students’ “majority opinions” may be
different, depending on the choices they made, because those choices will affect the reasoning
behind the decision. At this point, students can either print the majority opinions or email them
to you as evidence that they played the game.
WHAT IS THE OBJECT OF THE GAME?
The object of the game is to gain a high point score based on getting the most possible correct
answers.
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HOW DOES SCORING WORK?
Students gain points for correct answers and lose points for incorrect answers.
In the first two rooms, incorrect answers are accompanied by an explanation of
why the answer was wrong, so students have a chance to improve if they play
the game again. In the second two rooms, students have opportunities to replay the activities until they get it right. At the beginning of the game, Justice
Waters gives students a “controller” that tracks students’ points and decisions.
The face of the “controller” appears on the right-hand side of the game on
each screen. It keeps track of students’ total accumulated points, has a “case
meter” that gauges whether students’ decisions are leaning toward Ben or the
school, and keeps track of which justice the student agreed with in each room.
ANSWER KEY FOR SELECTED ACTIVITIES:
Rooms 1 and 2: If students choose a wrong answer here, the game immediately tells them
why that answer is wrong. Each activity has a large number of items, so students keep playing
until they have categorized five items correctly.
Room 3: Below are the correct continuum configurations for each variation of the activity:
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Room 4: Below is the summary of the Tinker case that students will see, followed by the
correct answers for each statement from Tinker. Students who categorize the statements
incorrectly will get a slightly different version of these statements.
Summary:
In 1965, 15-year-old Mary Beth Tinker and some other students planned to wear
black armbands to school to protest the war in Vietnam. The schools’ principals
heard about the students’ plan and told the students they could not wear the
armbands. Some students wore the armbands anyway and five students were
suspended. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme
Court decided that the school could not stop the students from wearing their arm
bands, because of freedom of speech.
Statements:
Students and teachers have the First Amendment right to freedom of speech
even when they are at school. BEN
However, teachers and principals must be able to control some things student do
so that learning is not disrupted. SCHOOL
The First Amendment right to freedom of speech has limits in a school setting.
SCHOOL
Mary Beth Tinker’s armband was not disruptive because there was no violence or
interruption of classroom activities. BEN
Just being afraid that something will be disruptive is not enough to take away
the right to freedom of speech. After all, a disruption could happen any time one
person says something that another person disagrees with. BEN
But, if the school has good reason to think that the speech will cause disruption,
it can stop the speech. SCHOOL
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